2026 Johns Hopkins Updates in Gastrointestinal Cancers Conference

Marina Baretti, MD, is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Jiasheng Chair in Hepato-Biliary Cancer Research. She also serves as Co-Director of the Liver and Biliary Cancer Multidisciplinary Clinic at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center (SKCCC). Dr. Baretti received her medical degree from the University of Pisa in Italy. She completed her internal medicine residency and oncology fellowship at University of Milan. She then went on and completed her Postdoctoral and Medical Oncology Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. She is deeply engaged in bridging the gap between laboratory discoveries and clinical application, working closely with laboratory-based scientists to accelerate the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Her academic research is centered on the development of novel agents in hepatobiliary cancers, with particular interest in combinatorial approaches of immunotherapies. She is currently the principal investigator on multiple clinical trials in FLC, HCC and cholangiocarcinoma at Johns Hopkins University, collaborating closely with laboratory-based researchers to move laboratory findings into patients. Through her work, Dr. Baretti strives to improve outcomes for patients with rare GI cancers by identifying innovative therapies that are informed by a deeper understanding of tumor biology and the tumor microenvironment. Dr. Baretti was the recipient of the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Young Investigator Award. Dr. Baretti was also awarded with the 2020 Career Development Award for the MD Anderson Cancer Center’s pancreatic cancer NCI Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE).

Dr. Katherine Bever is a medical oncologist in Baltimore, caring for patients with gastrointestinal malignancies, including gastric, pancreatic, colorectal, neuroendocrine and biliary cancers. Dr. Bever received her undergraduate degree in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University. She earned her M.D. from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She completed her residency in internal medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and performed a fellowship in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Bever joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2015. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Bever was an internist at the Amyloidosis Center at Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Bever was recognized with a Pearl M. Stetler Fellowship Award in 2018. She is a member of several professional organizations, including the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, the American Association of Clinical Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Mary-Eve is a licensed registered dietitian nutritionist. She is also a board-certified oncology dietitian with The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She has been an oncology dietitian at Johns Hopkins for 25 years.

Dr. Christenson is an Assistant Professor in the GI Oncology program at Johns Hopkins with a strong clinical and research focus on improving the care of patients with GI Malignancies. To compliment these clinical efforts, his research focuses on developing novel treatment approaches to exploit molecular changes associated with GI cancers. This work serves as the foundation for clinical trials aimed at improving outcomes for patients with GI cancer through targeting MAPK-AKT and other signaling pathways in combination with immunotherapy.

Dr. Ashton Connor completed medical school and residency in general surgery at the University of Toronto. He completed a fellowship in abdominal transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery at Duke University. Dr. Connor then started on staff at Houston Methodist Hospital.
Dr. Connor also completed a doctorate at the University of Toronto. His research interest is in the application of data science and genomics to studying oncology and immunology.

Dr. Jennifer Eads is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Abramson Cancer Center where she is a gastrointestinal medical oncologist focusing on the treatment of and research in patients with gastroesophageal cancers and neuroendocrine tumors. She is the Physician Lead for GI Clinical Research, overseeing the Penn GI clinical research portfolio. She is the Penn institutional principal investigator for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG-ACRIN) and was recently appointed as Director of the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) for the Abramson Cancer Center. She has served as principal investigator for multiple phase I/II/III clinical trials, including as the national study chair for multiple cooperative group trials. She has served on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) neuroendocrine tumors guidelines committee, is a former member of the North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (NANETS) Board of Directors and is currently on the Board of Scientific Advisors for the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (NETRF). In 2022, she was named as the ECOG-ACRIN Young Investigator of the Year.

Dr Anthony El-Khoueiry is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, Verna R. Richter Chair in Cancer Research, and Associate Director for Clinical Research at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles. He is also Chief of Section of Developmental Therapeutics/Phase I Program. He is the recipient of the Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award from National Cancer Institute. He has been the lead investigator on several first-in-human or first-in-class trials with recent examples such as the phase I study of Botensilimab, a novel CTLA4 antibody with activity across solid tumors including “cold tumors” and the phase I study of AFM24, a novel NK cell engager targeting EGFR. In addition to his national reputation in the drug development space, Dr. El-Khoueiry is a recognized international expert in the treatment of hepatobiliary cancers. He led the first clinical trial that evaluated the activity of anti-PD1 immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma. This trial, checkmate 040, was pivotal in leading to subsequent development of immunotherapy combinations for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma which resulted in significant improvement in survival for these patients. Similarly, he recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology the first clinical trial to evaluate the addition of anti PD-1 and anti VEGF therapy to the chemotherapy backbone for biliary tract cancers. This trial showed an improvement in progression free survival and durable responses in a subset of patients whose tumors express higher levels of VEGF. These data have opened the door for further exploration of such combinations in biliary tract cancers. In addition to these trials, Dr. El-Khoueiry holds national leadership roles in hepatolobiliary cancers research including Chair of the Hepatobiliary Cancers Subcommittee in the Southwest Oncology Group and member of the National Cancer Institute Hepatobiliary Cancers Task Force.

Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, FASCO, Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Oncology, is the David H. Johnson Endowed Chair of Surgical and Medical Oncology, Co-Director of GI Oncology and the Co-Leader of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Research Program, VICC Associate Director of Strategic Relations and Research Partnerships, Executive Director of the Young Adults Cancers Program. She was the Ambassador for the American Cancer Society ResearcHERS campaign (2020-2022). She is a highly sought mentor and served on the Vanderbilt-Ingram Mentorship Council and is currently a mentor on the T-32 grant and serves on the Professional Development Mentor. She continues to assume leadership positions devoted to development of phase I-III clinical trials using novel therapeutics for biomarker discovery and enhanced drug utilization in colorectal, appendiceal and anal cancer patients. Nationally, Dr. Eng has also been highly active serving on multiple committees for ASCO, ECOG, and SWOG. She was chosen for the ASCO Leadership Development Program, ASCO Social Media Committee, the ASCO Colorectal Guidelines Committee, ASCO Scientific Program Committee (Colorectal Cancer Track) and the ASCO Communications Committee. She has served as the co-chair of the SWOG Rectal/Anal Cancer Subcommittee; the Vice-Chair for the SWOG GI Committee; the Chairman of the NCI Rectal/Anal Task Force, member of the NCI GI Steering Committee, and is now the co-Chair of the NCI GI Steering Committee. She participated in the President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot White House Colorectal Cancer Forum. She has published in many peer-reviewed journals and served on many national grant review panels.

Sepideh Gholami, MD, MAS, is a board-certified surgeon scientist with dual fellowship training in complex general surgical oncology and hepatopancreatobiliary surgery. She completed her master's degree in clinical research at the University of California, Davis' Mentored Clinical Research Training Program. There, her thesis focused on the tumor and immune microenvironment of colorectal cancer in an autologous ex-vivo 3D model to test drug combinations that will be more faithfully translated in clinical trials, ultimately leading to better outcomes for patients with colorectal liver metastases. Dr. Gholami is a national thought leader in the management of hepatobiliary malignancies with a vested interest in clinical trials. She serves as the co-chair of the colon subcommittee for Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG), a member of the NCI Colon Cancer Task Force, and American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Advanced Colon Guideline Expert Panel. She has numerous peer-reviewed publications and has been the recipient of several research grants and prestigious awards including the K12 Paul Calabrese Career Development Award and SWOG’s Young Investigator Award. She also holds awards from the Society of Surgical Oncology, Association of Women Surgeons and Association of Academic Surgeons.

Amy Hacker-Prietz is a Physician Assistant (PA-C) in the Johns Hopkins Department of Radiation Oncology & Molecular Sciences. Amy is on the gastrointestinal malignancies team that includes pancreas, colorectal, hepatobiliary, and gastric cancers and also serves as the Pancreas Multidisciplinary Clinic Coordinator. In 2020, Amy joined the Canopy Cancer Collective, a national learning health network that focuses on optimizing pancreas cancer care. Amy was previously a research scientist in tumor biology at Johns Hopkins in the field of polyamine pathways and drug characterization. Amy's current interest is in improving the patient/caregiver experience through multi-level education processes and whole-person care.

Jin He, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is the Division Chief of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary & Gastrointestinal Surgical Oncology. Dr. He specializes in diseases and tumors of the pancreas, liver, bile duct, and gallbladder. He performs open as well as minimally invasive (robotic and laparoscopic) surgery, including the Whipple procedure. Dr. He received his medical degree from Beijing Medical University and a Ph.D. in oncology from Fudan University Shanghai Medical College. He completed the Halsted general surgery residency training at Johns Hopkins, followed by an ACGME accredited fellowship in complex general surgical oncology at Johns Hopkins. Dr. He is the John Cameron Professor of Alimentary Tract Diseases. Dr. He’s research focuses on personalized treatment through stratifying pancreatic tumors on their genetic features. He holds several patents in anti-cancer vascular targeting agents and has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and lectured internationally. He serves on several national committees, including the NCCN panel on neuroendocrine tumors and the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology.