I am a medical oncologist at UT Southwestern specializing in the care of lung cancer patients, with a focus on small cell lung cancer (SCLC). My laboratory, located in the Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology, focuses on translational research in SCLC and other aggressive neuroendocrine tumors. We leverage a large panel of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models that closely recapitulate the clinical features of their corresponding patients to discover new targets and develop new therapies for this deadly disease. We have three current areas of focus: (1) strategies to overcome or circumvent chemotherapy cross-resistance, which renders relapsed SCLC refractory to further care, (2) elucidation of the mechanism by which lineage transdifferentiation between lung adenocarcinoma and SCLC occurs, and (3) approaches to target loss of the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor (RB1), a genomic hallmark of SCLC, by synthetic lethality.

Anish Thomas is a clinical researcher and thoracic oncologist. The goals of his research program are: 1) to develop more effective therapies for patients with SCLC by targeting DNA replication, repair, and chromatin remodeling, and 2) genomic characterization of SCLCs to better understand the basis of treatment response and resistance. Work from his group has revealed replication stress as a transformative vulnerability of SCLCs characterized by high neuroendocrine differentiation, targetable by ATR inhibition (Cancer Cell 2021 PMID: 33848478; J Clin Oncol 2018; PMID: 29252124), provided novel insights into the transcriptomic features that render low neuroendocrine SCLC more sensitive to immunotherapy (Nat Commun, PMID: 34162872), and discovered a novel SCLC subset defined by the germline genotype and improved responses to DNA repair targeted drugs (Sci Trans Med 2021; PMID: 33504652).

I was born and raised in a beautiful city in Turkey. I went to high school and university in the same city. I completed my residency in the field of chest diseases. My hobbies are reading, swimming and doing sports. I love learning about different cultures and exploring new places.