Jeremy Kratz, MD

Research Description

Gastrointestinal cancers represent complex diversity at baseline yet tracking diversity to resistance remains a formidable barrier to effective targeting strategies. Our laboratory utilizes patient-derived organoid cultures to characterize the diversity of hepatobiliary and pancreatic cancers in response to therapeutic challenge. We map the molecular heterogeneity under selection of therapeutic pressure and characterize the residual cancer to understand the unmet need of therapeutic resistance. The work is achieved in serum-free synthetic culture conditions and complemented with In Vivo xenograft animal studies. Together, we investigate how mechanisms of molecular resistance are regulated at the level of transcription to inform rational combinations to overcome resistance and improve clinical outcomes. Our group at the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Human Genomics and Precision Medicine provides opportunities to contribute to clinical translation in both understanding biomarkers of molecular heterogeneity and personalize effective targeting strategies.

Selected Publications

Kratz, J. D., Rehman, S., Johnson, K. A., Gillette, A. A., Sunil, A., Favreau, P. F., … & Deming, D. A. (2021). Integrating subclonal response heterogeneity to define cancer organoid therapeutic sensitivity. bioRxiv.

DeStefanis, R. A., Kratz, J. D., Olson, A. M., Sunil, A., DeZeeuw, A. K., Gillette, A. A., … & Deming, D. A. (2022). Impact of baseline culture conditions of cancer organoids when determining therapeutic response and tumor heterogeneity. Scientific reports, 12(1), 1-14.

Skala, M. C., Deming, D. A., & Kratz, J. D. (2022). Technologies to Assess Drug Response and Heterogeneity in Patient-Derived Cancer Organoids. Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering, 24.