Sydney M. Shaffer, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Contact InformationUniversity of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA, 19104
Specialty Division
Cancer and Immunobiology
Itmat Expertise
Biomedical engineering
Systems Biology
Tissue engineering
Microfludics
Diagnostics
Graduate Groups
Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
Cell and Molecular Biology
Education
B.S. (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering), Georgia Institute of Technology , 2010
Ph.D. (Bioengineering), University of Pennsylvania, 2017
M.D. (Medicine), Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 2018
Specialty Certification
Postgraduate Training
Research Intern, Eli, Lilly and Company, Research and Development, 2007-2008
Hartwell Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2018-2019
Awards and Honors
John G. Clark Research Paper Award, University of Pennsylvania, 2014
NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F30), 2015-2018
Solomon R. Pollack Award for Excellence in Graduate Bioengineering Research/University of Pennsylvania, 2018
NIH Director's Early Independence Award DP5, 2019
Society for Melanoma Research, Christopher Marshall Award, 2023
Memberships and Professional Organizations
Biomedical Engineering Society, Member, 2017 - Present
American Association for Cancer Research, Associate Member, 2018 - Present
Web Links
Selected Publications
Disrupting cellular memory to overcome drug resistance
Harmange G, Reyes Hueros RA, Schaff D, Emert B, Saint-Antoine M, Nellore S, Fane ME, Alicea GM, Weeraratna AT, Singh A, Shaffer SM, Nature Communications 14(7130): , 2023
Detection of blood–brain barrier disruption in brains of patients with COVID-19, but no evidence of brain penetration by SARS-CoV-2
Hailong Song, Alexandra Tomasevich, Kofi K Acheampong, Dylan L Schaff, Sydney M Shaffer, Jean-Pierre Dolle, Victoria E Johnson, Bailey Mikytuck, Edward B Lee, Amber Nolan, C Dirk Keene, Susan R Weiss, William Stewart, Douglas H Smith, Acta Neuropathologica 146(5): 771-775, 2023
Non-genetic differences underlie variability in proliferation among esophageal epithelial clones
Reyes Hueros RA, Gier RA, Shaffer SM, BioRxiv [Pre-print], 2023
Patterns of tumour transcriptional variability
Raymond W S Ng, Sydney M Shaffer, Nature 618(7965): 464-465, 2023, PMID:37258729
Clonal differences underlie variable responses to sequential and prolonged treatment
Schaff DL*, Fasse AJ*, White PE, Vander Velde R, Shaffer SM, BioRxiv [Pre-print], 2023
Clonal cell states link Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma
Gier RA, Reyes Hueros RA, Rong J, DeMarshall M, Karakasheva TA, Muir AB, Falk GW, Zhang NR, Shaffer SM, BioRxiv [Pre-print], 2023
Integrating mutational and nonmutational mechanisms of acquired therapy resistance within the Darwinian paradigm
Robert Vander Velde, Sydney Shaffer, Andriy Marusyk, Trends in Cancer 8(6): 456-466, 2022
Variability within rare cell states enables multiple paths toward drug resistance
Benjamin L Emert, Christopher J Cote, Eduardo A Torre, Ian P Dardani, Connie L Jiang, Naveen Jain, Sydney M Shaffer, Arjun Raj, Nature Biotechnology 39(7): 865-876, 2021
Subcellular Detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in Human Tissue Reveals Distinct Localization in Alveolar Type 2 Pneumocytes and Alveolar Macrophages
Kofi K Acheampong, Dylan L Schaff, Benjamin L Emert, Jonathan Lake, Sam Reffsin, Emily K Shea, Courtney E Comar, Leslie A Litzky, Nigar A Khurram, Rebecca L Linn, Michael Feldman, Susan R Weiss, Kathleen T Montone, Sara Cherry, Sydney M Shaffer, mBio 13(1): e0375121, 2021, PMID:35130722
Genetic screening for single-cell variability modulators driving therapy resistance
Eduardo A Torre, Eri Arai, Sareh Bayatpour, Connie L Jiang, Lauren E Beck, Benjamin L Emert, Sydney M Shaffer, Ian A Mellis, Mitchell E Fane, Gretchen M Alicea, Krista A Budinich, Ashani T Weeraratna, Junwei Shi, Arjun Raj, Nature Genetics 53(1): 76-85, 2021
