Po Hien Ear, PhD

Board of Directors

Surgical Oncology, The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine

 Assistant Professor of Surgery - Surgical Oncology and Endocrine Surgery

Cancer cells are metabolically active and require a high turnover of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD⁺) and the reduced form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) to repair damaged DNA and sustain cellular reactions. My research focuses on understanding the impact of NADPH on serotonin biosynthesis in neuroendocrine tumors (NET), identifying druggable targets in the serotonin pathway for cancer treatment, and development of patient-derived organoid (PDO) and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of NET. Few pancreas and small bowel NET cell lines are available for research.

My group has pioneered the field of 3-D NET PDO cultures (PMID: 31657801) for precision medicine and understanding tumor biology. We are developing novel dynamic assays for studying NET PDO heterogeneity and their responses to anti-cancer drug treatments. These tools can potentially be applied to other cancer PDO models such as pancreas, prostate, and esophageal cancers.