Assistant Professor

Areas of Interest
neuroendocrine tumors, notch signaling pathway, theranostics, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Biography

Rachael Guenter, Ph.D., joined the faculty of the UAB Department of Surgery in 2023.

She received her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology at The University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2021 under the mentorship of Dr. Herbert Chen. She received her B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from North Carolina State University in May 2017.

Dr. Guenter investigates the molecular mechanisms of neuroendocrine cancer and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma to develop novel therapeutic strategies. Dr. Guenter has a track record of publishing on strategies to improve the detection of neuroendocrine tumors.

Currently, her areas of focus include the development of novel theranostic agents for pancreatic cancers and understanding the role of Notch signaling in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. She is particularly interested in developing new treatments for patients with unresectable, advanced disease. She also advocates to bring awareness to neuroendocrine cancer and aims to provide accurate information for patients and the general public.

Selected Publications

Carmona Matos DM, Guenter R, Chen H. “Chapter 106: Data Presentation.” Translational Surgery: Handbook for Designing and Conducting Clinical and Translational Research. Elsevier Inc. (2022).

Herring B, Bonner A, Guenter R, Vickers S, Yates C, Dhall D, Chen H, Rose JB. Under-Representation of Racial Groups in Genomics Studies of Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Neoplasms. Cancer Research Communications 3 October 2022; 2 (10): 1162–1173. https://doi.org/10.1158/2767-9764.CRC-22-0093.

Budhwani KI, Patel ZH*, Guenter RE, Charania AA. A hitchhiker's guide to cancer models. Trends Biotechnol. 2022 May 7:S0167-7799(22)00101-9. doi: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2022.04.003. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35534320.

Carter AM, Kumar N, Herring B, Tan C, Guenter R, Telange R, Howse W, Viol F, McCaw TR, Bickerton HH, Gupta P, Gillardon F, Woltering EA, Dhall D, Totenhagen J, Banerjee RR, Kurian EM, Reddy S, Chen H, Schrader J, Bart Rose J, Mukhtar MS, Bibb JA. Cdk5 drives formation of heterogeneous pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Oncogenesis. 2021 Dec 3;10(12):83. doi: 10.1038/s41389-021-00372-5. PMID: 34862365; PMCID: PMC8642406.

Jiang Y, Guo Y, Hao J, Guenter R, Lathia J, Beck AW, Hattaway R, Hurst D, Wang QJ, Liu Y, Cao Q, Krontiras H, Chen H, Silverstein R, Ren B. Development of an arteriolar niche and self-renewal of breast cancer stem cells by lysophosphatidic acid/protein kinase D signaling. Commun Biol. 2021 Jun 24;4(1):780. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02308-6. PubMed PMID: 34168243; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8225840.

Akil A, Gutiérrez-García AK, Guenter R, Rose JB, Beck AW, Chen H, Ren B. Notch Signaling in Vascular Endothelial Cells, Angiogenesis, and Tumor Progression: An Update and Prospective. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021;9:642352. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.642352. eCollection 2021. Review. PubMed PMID: 33681228; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7928398.

Herring B, Whitt J, Aweda T, Ou J, Guenter R, Lapi S, Berry J, Chen H, Liu X, Rose JB, Jaskula-Sztul R. A growth model of neuroendocrine tumor surrogates and the efficacy of a novel somatostatin-receptor-guided antibody-drug conjugate: Perspectives on clinical response?. Surgery. 2020 Jan;167(1):197-203. doi: 10.1016/j.surg.2019.04.073. Epub 2019 Sep 19. PubMed PMID: 31543319; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8162105.

Guenter R, Aweda T, Carmona Matos DM, Jang S, Whitt J, Cheng YQ, Liu XM, Chen H, Lapi SE, Jaskula-Sztul R. Overexpression of somatostatin receptor type 2 in neuroendocrine tumors for improved Ga68-DOTATATE imaging and treatment. Surgery. 2020 Jan;167(1):189-196. doi: 10.1016/j.surg.2019.05.092. Epub 2019 Oct 16. PubMed PMID: 31629542; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8422841.

Guenter RE, Aweda T, Carmona Matos DM, Whitt J, Chang AW, Cheng EY, Liu XM, Chen H, Lapi SE, Jaskula-Sztul R. Pulmonary Carcinoid Surface Receptor Modulation Using Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors. Cancers (Basel). 2019 Jun 3;11(6). doi: 10.3390/cancers11060767. PubMed PMID: 31163616; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6627607.

Tateosian L, Guenter R, Yang YP, Ristaino JB. (2017). “Tracking 19th century late blight from archival documents using text analytic tools”, Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings: Vol. 17, Article 17.

Education

Graduate School
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Contact

Campus Address
THT 1020

Phone
(205) 975-8558

Email
rguenter@uabmc.edu