TGen

Our postdocs found a unique way to bring life to their workspaces... Each made their own terrarium to out of beakers 🌱 👨🏽‍🔬 🧫 Very clever.

Fashion 🤝 Philanthropy

Join Arizona’s philanthropic and fashion community for a beautiful morning dedicated to advancing lifesaving research at TGen and City of Hope. Secure your seat, celebrate incredible style, and make a real difference in the fight against women's cancers.

Thank you to our chairs, Lee Courtney and Justine Hurry, for their dedication and vision in bringing this event to life.

🗓️ Friday, October 9
9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
📍 Scottsdale Fashion Square, Luxury Wing
🎟️ Tickets are limited! Grab yours today at tgen.org/runway

We are thrilled to share that Tess Burleson has been selected as a 2026 Woman of Achievement by In Business Magazine Phoenix.

At her core, Tess embodies the TGen mission to improve patient impact and empowers her team members to do the same. Scientific innovation at TGen would not be where it is today without the leadership of Ms. Burleson. 👏🏼

Leadership is about turning vision into impact — and creating possibilities that can change lives. ✨

We’re proud to celebrate Tess Burleson, M.B.A., C.P.A., President of TGen Health Ventures and Chief Operating Officer of TGen, as a 2026 In Business Magazine Woman of Achievement.

Tess joins an extraordinary group of women whose leadership, innovation and commitment are helping shape Greater Phoenix and the communities around them.

Join us on October 23 at the Arizona Biltmore as we celebrate Tess and this year’s Women of Achievement honorees at our 11th annual event and luncheon.

Here’s to the women leading what’s next. Ticket link in bio.

TGen

Sept. 24 is World Cancer Research Day 🧬

Taking a moment to reflect of the impact research has on cancer patients, treatments, survivorship and improving the care of our communities.

Thank you to those who work tirelessly at the lab bench, bioinformatician stations, and throughout TGen who work to bring the innovation of tomorrow to patients today.

Research and innovation doesn't happen without the support of our community. Participating in events like Runway for Research, Walk for Hope, Lynne Troubaugh Golf Classic, and other events help raise critical funds needed for research.

💙 Give a gift today and support life-saving cancer research https://bit.ly/4htVg2w

💚 Lynne Trobaugh Golf Classic: https://bit.ly/4hr8op4

🩷 Runway for Research: https://bit.ly/3RvqygB

🧡 Walk for Hope City of Hope Phoenix: https://bit.ly/4j62kF5

Early detection of ovarian cancer has been nearly impossible: initial symptoms like bloating and abdominal pain are easy to miss or dismiss, and the standard screening tools aren't sensitive enough to flag the disease before it progresses.

TGen researchers have identified unique biological signatures in standard Pap smears and blood that can reliably distinguish ovarian cancer patients from healthy individuals.

If these trials prove successful, ovarian cancer could be detected with the same Pap smear a woman already gets at her annual exam — something that hasn’t been done before — reaching women early enough to be treated effectively and allowing them to continue living their lives to the fullest.

In recognition of September's Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, we are proud of the work TGen and City of Hope Phoenix have done at the Capitol to help improve cancer research and treatment for Arizona's youngest patients.

This past July, Gov. Hobbs signed HB2082, creating the Childhood Cancer and Rare Childhood Disease Research Commission within the Arizona Department of Health Services, empowering the state to award grants to health care providers and research institutions advancing clinical trials for pediatric cancer and rare childhood diseases. A meaningful step forward for Arizona's youngest patients and the families who fight alongside them.

City of Hope Phoenix Chief Clinical Officer, Alan H. Bryce, M.D., (left) and TGen President, Jeffrey Trent, Ph.D., F.A.C.M.G.G., were proud to support it.

Ovarian cancer can be hard to spot early, but recognizing symptoms—like persistent bloating, pelvic pain, and appetite changes—can make a critical difference.

We also need to talk about care equity: Women of color face lower survival rates and greater barriers to diagnostic, genetic, and treatment access. To change this, research and clinical trials must represent every community.

Researchers at TGen, like Dr. Patrick Pirrotte, are fighting back by studying rare, overlooked ovarian cancers to develop lifesaving targeted therapies.

Learn the signs, advocate for your health, and support equitable cancer research today: https://bit.ly/4A78eeT

Current diagnostic tools for heart transplant rejection rely heavily on histology, which often misses critical molecular details. A new study using subcellular spatial transcriptomics on cardiac biopsies from 62 recipients is changing the game:

🔬 Mapped 28 cell types to uncover deep transcriptional heterogeneity during and after rejection.
⚠️ Found high intra-grade variability—rejection severity on paper doesn’t tell the whole molecular story.
🧫 T-cell hyperactivation & tissue remodeling genes were spotted at baseline in patients who didn't respond to standard therapies.
🧬 Identified cell-specific markers linked directly to long-term graft success.

By subtyping cellular states, we can move toward far more precise, personalized care for transplant patients.

Check out the paper and the cover of Nature Cardiovascular Research here: https://go.nature.com/4cEGq7N

Congratulations to TGen's Samantha O'Connor, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Pirrotte Lab, part of the Early Detection and Prevention Division.

Dr. O'Connor received the "Best Poster Award" at the 2026 European Symposium on Single Cell Proteomics in Vienna. Her project, "Resolving Immune Lineage and Cell State in Human PBMCs by Single-Cell Proteomics," builds a protein-level reference map of immune cells in human blood and trains machine learning models to identify those cell types in unsorted samples - a step toward tracking how a patient's immune system responds to disease and treatment at the protein level.

Congratulations again, Dr. O'Connor!
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