Photo: Hallie Leo
UMass Chan Medical School PhD candidate Katherine “Kat” Murphy has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship for her prostate cancer research in the lab of Marcus Ruscetti, PhD, assistant professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology.
The National Cancer Institute-funded research focuses on genetic mutations found in a late-stage type of castration-resistant prostate cancer called neuroendocrine prostate cancer and how those mutations impact patient responses to immunotherapies. Murphy found an aggressive genetic subtype and confirmed that it was immune suppressive for patients.
“This research is critical because patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer have very few effective therapeutic options and are typically resistant to many of the new immunotherapies that have revolutionized how we treat other cancer types,” Murphy said.
“Kat developed a modeling technique that maybe only five other labs in the world know how to do. Using this genetic model, she can find new drug types that can work for that specific mutation, investigating different types of precision medicine based off the mutations in a patient's tumor,” Dr. Ruscetti said. “Her research is going to make a huge impact on prostate cancer treatment and our understanding of how to target the immune system.”
Murphy is a student in the Cancer Biology Program of the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She grew up in Braintree and studied biochemistry in a pre-med program at Boston College before working as a research technician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the lab of Kornelia Polyak, MD, PhD. Murphy’s work as a technician in the Ruscetti lab for two years led her to enroll at UMass Chan.
“I knew I wanted to do cancer research when my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer while I was in high school and experienced a recurrence when I was a sophomore in college,” Murphy said. “Thankfully, she's been healthy since receiving treatment, but it’s not lost on me that she was diagnosed and treated early enough because of researchers and clinicians.”
Murphy was recently first author on a paper published in Cancer Research on the role of vascular endothelial growth factor signaling in suppressing antitumor immunity. She served as a teaching assistant for the Cancer Biology and Medicine course co-directed by Ruscetti and Jason Pitarresi, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, and helped organize the 2024 Cancer Biology Program Research Retreat. She is a 2025 recipient of a Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, Award in Graduate Research, for cancer biology.
“I love UMass Chan’s environment and how most labs work in direct collaboration rather than competition, regardless of specialty or department,” Murphy said. “That’s not the case at all research institutions and I really appreciate how that environment has helped me drive my research forward across disciplines.”
