Dr. Majumder joined the Department of Genetics at LSUHSC in November 2017 after spending 20 years in acdemia and biotech industries. Dr. Majumder received his postdoctoral training in the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill.and worked in the field of Drosophila genetics. He was Instrumental in finding a novel gene (mei9) in fruit fly, drosophila, that is involved in nucleotide excision repair (NER). In 2003, he joined at Lineberger Comprehensive Research Center in UNC, Chapel Hill and worked in prostate cancer research. While working in this field, Dr. Majumder 1. Documented the importance of breast cancer gene, her2, in the late stage of prostate cancer progression. 2. Identified the involvement of Coactivator Associated Arginine Methyltransferase (CARM1) and the importance of epigenetics in prostate cancer progression and 3. contributed to implicate Ack1, a growth promoting cellular protein, in late stage of prostate cancer. From 2006 to 2009, he worked with Prof. Bryan Roth at Dept. of Pharmacology in UNC and was actively involved in National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH) psychoactive drug discovery program. He Collaborated with University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and screened compounds that resulted in some peer reviewed publications (5) and compounds with high therapeutic potentials.

In 2009, Dr. Majumder accepted an offer from an early stage biopharmaceutical company, Vascular Pharmaceutical, NC,and, joined there as Director-Preclinical Development. In this capacity, he was responsible in guiding A) Vascular's day to day research activities comprising of a team of researchers (3) in their effort to design, develop and commercialize a novel antibody against diabetes accelerated heart complications and B) Successfully coordinated preclinical studies in pigs to validate the efficacy of in-house monoclonal antibody.

From 2012 to 2016, Dr. Majumder worked as a Sr. Scientist in another biotech company, Novametics, NC, and led company's effort to develop and commercialize a novel dignostic assay kit to detect blood clotting disorders. Dr. Majumder successfully A) validated and optimized a novel diagnostic clotting assay with a patented component to detect blood coagulation disorders. B) Collaborated with senior management and cross-functional stakeholders to enable selection of appropriate assay platform and formulation of kits. C) Manage a team of cross functional scientists (up to 5) from various disciplines to ensure that all timelines and project deliverables were met. He was in charge of Novametics scientific execution and played an important role in company's strategy and business development. D) Worked with subject matter expert (SME) to facilitate the clinical trial of patient samples at Duke and UNC.and E) Positioned the company into a "sweetspot" for a licensing agreement with big healthcare companies.

Research Interests

Dr. Majumder has been recruited in this department to bolster department's strong focus on cancer research. He brings with him his valuable experience in industry and his previous translational research experience in cancer to integrate and navigate a few ongoing breast cancer research projects. Currectly, Dr. Majumder is working on 3 projects.

1. I have been actively investigating the role of Protein S (PS), a natural anticoagulant in Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) both in mice and in clinical samples in collaboration with Dr. Rinku Majumder's lab, who is a Professor in Department of Interdisciplinary Oncology. PDAC accounts for 95% of all pancreatic cancers. PDAC is considered the most fatal of all cancers and is associated with a grim prognosis. PDAC tumor progression is associated with robust activation of coagulation system. Notably, Cancer associated thrombosis (CAT) is a significant risk factor in PDAC. CAT is a concept whereby cancer cells promote thromboembolism, primarily venous thromboembolism (VTE). PS deficiency has also been documented to induce hypoxia in the liver of obese mouse. Importantly, PDAC tumor environment is highly desmoplastic that promotes hypoxia. Therefore, it’s reasonable to investigate the effectiveness of PS in PDAC to attenuate both CAT and hypoxia. We believe hypoxia-PS and PS-CAT signaling axis are amenable to targeted therapy and PS supplementation posits an effective strategy to control PDAC.

2. Another area of my research interest is modulating gut microbiota to potentiate efficacy of cancer immunotherapy. More than 1 in 3 women treated with the FDA-approved anti-PD-1 therapy pembrolizumab for early triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) do not achieve a complete pathological response before breast surgery and have an 80% higher relative risk of premature death. Established factors that predict pathological complete response to pembrolizumab for early TNBC remain limited and are often not modifiable. Identifying modifiable factors that predict pathological complete response to pembrolizumab for early TNBC will inform personalized treatment strategies and empower patients with practical solutions to improve their probability of cure. We hypothesize that the gut microbiome is predictive of response to anti-PD-1 therapy and modifying the gut microbiome enhances the efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapy in early TNBC. This study leverages the synergies of a multi-institutional transdisciplinary team to offer insight into a mechanism that explains patient heterogeneity in response to anti-PD-1 therapy. This study will provide critical, complementary, and comprehensive analysis to justify larger-scale interrogations to modulate the gut microbiome in future clinical trial design. We have already awarded Cancer Center Research Initiave (CCRI) grant for our study.

3. I also forged a collaboration with Cellestia (https://www.cellestia.com), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company in Basel, Switzerland. As study Director, I successfully led Cellestia’s effort to evaluate in vivo efficacy studies of their lead compound “CB-103” (a novel pan-Notch small molecule inhibitor) in hormone resistant metastatic ER+ breast cancer that resulted in a peer reviewed paper, where I am one of the Sr. authors. We also applied for an RO1 grant on this premise.

I serve as a reviewer for peer-reviewed journals like “Oncogene” and “Pharmacology & Therapeutics”, “Frontiers”, MDPI Cancers etc. I also mentor postdoctoral fellows and get involved with teaching activities. Prior to joining LSUHSC, I spent my first 11 years in USA at UNC- Chapel Hill and published in high impact journals. Later, I moved to industry and worked for 6 years in two early stage biotechs in NC. During my one-year (2009-2010) stint as Director- Preclinical studies, I was instrumental in Vascular Pharmaceuticals’ effort to develop and commercialize a humanized antibody against diabetes accelerated heart disorders and supervised five personnel. Subsequently, as Principal Scientist (2011-2016) in Novametics in NC, I supervised three personnel and coordinated the clinical trial of company’s flagship diagnostic assay kit for detecting Lupus anticoagulant in blood. I led and executed the validation of the product in different clinical trial centers, generated SOP, met Subject Matter Experts (SME) and negotiated licensing agreements. I was involved in company’s strategic planning and business operation.

My Bibliography: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/collections/mybibliography/

My Researchgate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Samarpan-Majumder-2

Teaching Activities

Course Number: GENET245/BIOCH260

Course Title: Cancer Molecular genetics and application

Course Directors: Samarpan Majumder, Ph.D. and suresh Alahari, Phh. D.

Course Description: Graduate students who want to pursue cancer research in future should consider to take this course. This upper level course offers students to gain insight into the types of genetic alterations and beyond genes (epigenetics) that contribute to cancer development and progression. In addition, the course posits some of the recent therapies and genomics tools that revolutionized the field of clinical onocolgy to the students. By the end of the course, students should have a comprehensive understanding of the driver mutations that causes cancer, the role of epigenetics in cancer, recent progress in the cancer diagnosis, treatment, precision medicine etc. We assembled a formidable team of instructors who are experts in their own fields in this course.Course

Credits: 3

Course Number: GENET 299

Course Title: Seminar in Human Genetics

Course Directors: Fokhrul Hossain, Ph.D. and Samarpan Majumder, Ph.D.

Course Description: Reports on research progress and on current literature. A total of four credits must be earned during the period of graduate work.

Course Credits: 1

Critical Skill Integration (CSI) course for Medical School:

I participate in ~15 hrs/yr of teaching in this course.

Basic Science Facilitator and House Faculty Mentor

Critical Skill Integration (CSI) 100 and CSI 200 courses,

2018-Present

As a basic science facilitator for Rampart House, I actively participate in mentoring about 16 first- and second-year medical students. I usually participate in 10 to12 classes, (~15-18 hours annually) in small group interaction. Discussion topics include fine-tuning doctor-patient role-play by the students, professional relationships, confidentiality, informed consent, disclosing errors, duty to report, truth telling, research ethics, right to refuse treatment, duty to treat, professional responsibility in extreme conditions, lifesaving support and withdrawal of care, assisted suicide, access to care, medical interpreters.

Committees & Administrative Responsibilities

LSUHSC Committee

Communications Committee (2019-present)

International Travel Committee (2020 - present)

Sabbatical Leave Committee (2022-present)

Departmental committees:

Co-Director for the Dept. of Genetics Seminar Series (2021- Present)

Selected Publications

Selected Publications in the last two years:

Hossain F, Ucar DA, Monticone G, Ran Y, Majumder S, Larter K, Luu H, Wyczechowska D, Heidari S, Xu K, Shanthalingam S, Matossian M, Xi Y, Burow M, Collins-Burow B, Del Valle L, Hicks C, Zabaleta J, Golde T, Osborne B, Miele L. Sulindac sulfide as a non-immune suppressive γ-secretase modulator to target triple-negative breast cancer. Front Immunol. 2023 Oct 13;14:1244159; PMID: 37901240; Impact Factor: ~ 8.8.
Vigolo M, Urech C, Lamy S, Monticone G, Zabaleta J, Hossain F, Wyczechowska D, Del Valle L, O'Regan RM, Miele L, Lehal R and Majumder S*. The Efficacy of CB-103, a First-in-Class Transcriptional Notch Inhibitor, in Preclinical Models of Breast Cancer. MDPI Cancers (Basel) 2023 Aug 3;15(15):3957; PMID: 37568775. (*Corresponding author); Impact Factor: ~ 5.8
Monticone G, Huang Z, Csibi F, Leit S, Ciccone D, Champhekar AS, Ucar DA, Hossain F, Ibba SV, Boulares AH, Carpino N, Xu K, Majumder S, Osborne AS, Loh C and Miele L. Targeting Cbl-b-Notch1 axis as a novel immunotherapeutic strategy to boost CD8+T- cell responses. Front Immunol. 2022 Aug 26; 13:987298. PMID: 36090975; Impact Factor: ~8.8.
Means-Powell J, Mayor IA, lsmail-Khan R, Del ille L, Tonetti D, Abramson VG, Sanders MS, Lush RM, Sorrentino C, Majumder S and Miele L. A phase Ib dose escalation trial of RO4929097 (a Ɣ-secretase inhibitor) in combination with Exemestane in patients with ER+ metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Clinical Breast cancer, Volume 22, issue 2, February 2022, 103-114. PMID: 34903452; Impact factor: ~3.0725.

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