Elshad Hasanov MD, PhD

Dr. Hasanov is a medical oncology fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. His clinical and research interests span various approaches focusing on understanding the biology of kidney cancer and developing better treatments for the patients. He was born and raised in Azerbaijan. He received MD and PhD in Tumor Biology and Immunology from the Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine in Turkey. During his PhD training he worked in Dr. Cheryl Walker’s laboratory at Texas A&M Institute of Biosciences and Technology and revealed a new signaling pathway downstream of von Hippel-Linadu (VHL) tumor suppressor in kidney cancer. He showed that VHL, which is an E3-ligase, target Aurora Kinase A for protesomal degradation by ubiquitination. The downregulation of AURKA by VHL, plays a critical role in primary cilia maintenance and kidney cancer, offering new therapeutic opportunities for this disease. He subsequently completed the Internal Medicine Residency training at the University of Texas Houston McGovern Medical School.

His current research focuses on understanding the unique clinical and biological features of brain metastasis in renal cell carcinoma patients; also exploring the mechanisms behind the immune checkpoint resistance and immune checkpoint related toxicity. Dr. Hasanov is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He has published several peer-reviewed original papers, case reports, and reviews in leading journals including Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oncogene, Annals of Oncology, the Lancet.