KSOM Radiation Oncology News and Updates

The Department of Radiation Oncology is constantly growing. Please see achievements, awards, publications, and updates related to our departments research, education and clinical efforts.

Joshua Schiff, MD – New publication led by Dr. Schiff titled ” Biology-guided Radiotherapy A New Frontier in PET-guided Radiation Oncology”.

Zhilei (Julie) Shen, Ph.D., DABR – As the president of the AAPM Southern California Chapter, Julie helped organize the 2025 AAPM-SCC Norm Baily Student competition and MedPhys Slam at UC Irvine. More than 20 local physicists, residents, and students from multiple institutions attended the event.

New Publication – Collaborative effort by Drs. Schiff, Ye, Chang, Park, and many others: a case-based review of BgRT. Link to Article

ACR Reaccreditation – We celebrate achieving 3-year ACR reaccreditation for our Norris Cancer Hospital, Arcadia, Santa Clarita, and Buena Park. Newport Beach and Pasadena will be included in the next cycle. Congratulations to all who participated in this important accreditation attesting to our high quality and meeting national standards set by ACR.

First Human Bladder Transplant – The historic surgery performed by Dr. Gill, MD, Chairman of the Catherine & Joseph Aresty Department of Urology at Keck School of Medicine of USC, and Dr. Nassiri, MD, from UCLA Health, who trained under Dr. Gill, offers the promise of life-changing treatment for patients with debilitating bladder disease and disfunction. Link to Article

Newport Beach Clinic – Our Newport Radiation Oncology and Imaging has been featured in July issue of Stroll Balboa Island.

Eric Chang, MD – Upcoming publication titled “Predictors of treatment response and overall survival in patients with breast cancer brain metastases treated with stereotactic radiosurgery: a prospective study using the NeuroPoint Alliance SRS Registry, co-authored by Dr. Chang. DOI: 10.3171/2025.3.JNS241471 Link the Publication

Modrek Lab – New pre-publication titled “Persistent chromatin alterations and gene expression reprogramming follow widespread DNA damage in glioblastoma” by Aram S Modrek, Keerthivasan R Chandradoss, Catherine Do, Ravesanker Ezhilarasan, Theodoros Sakellaropoulos, Jerome Karp, Yingwen Ding, Ze-Yan Zhang, Melanie Graciani, Giulia Cova, Jenn E Phillips-Cremins, Erik P Sulman, and Jane A Skok. BIORXIV/2025/660431

Modrek Lab – New pre-publication titled “mtgRNA-db: An annotated database of multi-target CRISPR-Cas9 guide-RNAs in the human genome” by Aram S Modrek, Khoi Huynh, Catherine Do, Jerome Karp, Yingwen Deng, ZeYan Zhang, Ravesanker Ezhilarasan, Belen Valor, Giulia Cova, Jane A Skok, and Erik P Sulman. BIORXIV/2025/652656

Elizabeth Zhang-Velten, MD, PhD – featured in the article “What is Radiation for Cancer?” that has been shared on our social media channels.

Eric Chang, MD – featured in the video “When is radiation therapy the right choice” has recently posted on our Social media channels. Please see links below.

Congratulations Joshua Schiff, MD – Dr. Schiff, co-author, of the abstract titled “DE-escalated Conformal Radiation Expedited Sequentially with Chemotherapy for locally advanced ENDOmetrial cancer (DECRESCENDO) – NCT04386993” was awarded for scoring in the top 5% of ESTRO 2025 submitted abstracts.

Congratulations Lijun Ma, PhD – Dr. Ma was conferred the designation of Fellow of the American College of Radiology at its annual meeting in Washington DC this past weekend, May 4, 2025. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Ma on this honor.

Congratulations to Arthur Olch, PhD, FAAPM – Arthur Olch’s work has been recognized by Wiley as top viewed article titled “A Comprehensive Review of 30 years of Pediatric Clinical Trial Radiotherapy Dose Constraints” in Pediatric Blood & Cancer.

May Lin Tao, MD – Congratulations on being recognized as a Los Angeles Business Journal 2025 Woman of Influence in Healthcare. The issue is now available online. Link to Article

Congratulations, Lauren Lukas, MD – Dr. Lukas treated our first VMAT Total lymphoid irradiation case at Norris using this specialized technique. This is our first case in collaboration with the USC Norris Blood and Marrow Transplant Program to treat mycosis fungoides with a conditioning regimen of total skin electron beam therapy, total lymphoid irradiation, and antithymocyte globulin (TSEBT-TLI-ATG) prior to allogeneic stem cell transplant. Many thanks to Dr. Salim Balik for all his work on the VMAT TLI planning technique.

Newport Beach update – We are excited to share that we passed our inspection with CDPH yesterday and licenses are effective immediately. We will have our physicians staffed starting Monday March 31st and officially open to the public. Elizabeth Zhang-Velten, MD and Hirsch Matani, MD will be our two physicians at Newport Beach, and Eric Chang, MD will be serving as interim Medical Director. We are excited for this new venture and to partner with our USC Med Oncs. in Newport Beach and Irvine in addition to other referring providers in the community.

New residency program members – We are pleased to announce that Dr. Om Sakhalkar of Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and Dr. Swati Vanaparthy of MediCiti Institute of Medical Sciences have matched into our Radiation Oncology residency program starting on July 1, 2026.

Diane Ling, MD – Coauthored the new ASTRO Rectal Cancer guideline. Link to ASTRO Rectal Cancer guideline

107th Annual Meeting of American Radium Society – This year’s Annual Meeting of the ARS (the oldest oncology meeting in the United States) will be held in Seattle, WA at the Grand Hyatt Hotel on April 3-6th, 2025. Dr. Chang will be the presiding President of the American Radium Society. Seven members of USC Radiation oncology will be representing by attending the meeting, five members will be making scientific presentations in both oral and poster format from: Dr. Hye Ri Han, Dr. Justin Park, Dr. Christine Yang, Dr. Brittney Chau, and Dr. Lijun Ma. Dr. Ye will be attending and representing Keck Medicine of USC by serving as ARS AUC Breast Committee member. Let’s cheer them on and give them our support!!!!!

Congratulations to Drs. May Lin Tao, MD and Dr. Jason Ye, MD – As recently presented at our weekly chart rounds, Dr. Tao and Dr. Ye are treating our department’s first small batch of benign diseases like osteoarthritis, plantar fasciitis, etc. with Low Dose Radiation Therapy (LDRT).

Drs. Elizabeth Zhang-Velten, MD and Hirsch Matani, MD are leading the way in terms of developing marketing brochures to increase awareness of LDRT for benign disease in the community.

Drs. Hye Ri Han, MD and Diane Ling, MD – Coauthored the article “Can We Have the Best of Both Worlds? Considerations for Combining Oncoplastic Reconstruction with Partial Breast Irradiation” feature.  Link to Abstract

Drs. Lauren Lukas, MD and Hualin Zhang, PhD – Coauthored a new abstract publication titled “Immune Effects of Spatially Fractionated Radiation Therapy in Triple Negative Breast Cancer”.

Drs. Lauren Lukas, MD;  Hualin Zhang, PhD; and Zhengzheng Xu, PhD– Coauthored a new abstract publication titled “Feasibility of a Lead FRID Collimator for Electron GRID Therapy”

Drs. Hye Ri Han, MD; Hualin Zhang, PhD; and Lauren Lukas, MD – Coauthored a new abstract publication titled  “Threshold Dose in Spatially Fractionated Radiation Therapy for Preclinical Triple-Negative Breast Cancer”

Joshua Schiff, MD, PhD – Senior coauthor of a new publication titled “Workflow considerations for implementing a cone-beam CT-guided adaptive radiotherapy program” published in Applied Radiation Oncology.  Link to Article

Drs. Arthur Olch, PhD; Hualin Zhang, PhD; and Kenneth Wong, MD – coauthored a new abstract publication titled “ShotCaller: An Automated Target Placement Algorithm to Streamline Spatially Fractioned Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning”, about software to assist in SFRT treatment planning.

May Lin Tao, MD – Dr. Tao was featured in the article “Radiation Oncology: Leading Teams in Technology, Training and Beyond” on Keck Medicine Physician Hub site. Link to Article

Arthur Olch, PhD, FAAPM – Congratulations to Dr. Olch, who will be granted emeritus status upon his retirement by USC, effective July 1, 2025. This prestigious honor signifies honorable retirement from his assigned duties. This award is a testament to his unwavering service and is a well-deserved recognition of your contributions. We eagerly anticipate your continued presence in our academic community.

Eric Chang, MD, FARS, FASTRO – Dr. Chang’s article “ A Personalized Approach to Spinal Cord Ependymoma,” is now available online.

Link to Article: A Personalized Approach to Spinal Cord Ependymoma

May Lin Tao, MD, MSHS – Dr. Tao has treated the department’s first two osteoarthritis patients with low dose radiation therapy in the community based on ASTRO and German guidelines. Congratulations to her on breaking new ground for RT indications at Keck Medicine of USC!!!!

Eric L. Chang MD FARS, FACR, FASTRO – Named as Top Radiation Oncologist for 2025 by Castle Connolly.  These Oncologist represent the top 7% of all U.S. practicing physicians, and are best-in-class healthcare providers, embodying excellence in clinical care as well as interpersonal skills. Link to Caste Connolly profile.

Lijun Ma, PhD – Has been ranked #1 for Radiosurgical specialty on experscape.com and ranked 23 among all Medical Physicist: worldwide for specialty experts

Lijun Ma, PhD – Has been elected as a Fellow of American College of Radiology ( FACR)

Multiple Faculty –  Drs. Lauren Lukas, Jason Ye, Kenneth Wong, Hye Ri Han, and Hualin Zhang along with colleagues from Pathology and Medical Oncology recently had an article titled “Targeting EZH2 to mitigate immune checkpoint resistance in ARID1A-deficient triple-negative breast cancer” published in Advances in Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine.

Dr. Zhaoyang Fan, PHD –  Recently had an article title “Interleaved flow‐sensitive dephasing (iFSD): Toward enhanced blood flow suppression and preserved T1 weighting and overall signals in 3D TSE‐based neuroimaging in Magnetic Resonance in Medicine” published online.

Link to article: http://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.30391

Dr. Eric Chang – Dr. Chang’s new 2nd Edition Book Adult CNS Radiation Oncology has been published as a definitive textbook (850 pages) on brain tumors.

Link to Article: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-67878-3

Dr. Eric Chang – Had an article published in Cancers that he contributed to, “The Role of CT and MR Imaging in Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy of the Spine: From Patient Selection and Treatment Planning to Post-Treatment Monitoring.”

Link to Article:https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/16/21/3692__;!!JkGBRS3n8cDS!h2wyXwCmr_JQEO0VoB-                     8W2cNHJlK45ISm7PcQFLAG8D6-zV8MpB3HGm4qNWdQeJ6sXYiCfUOqet5TZHAfOA$

Dr. Eric Chang – Dr. Chang recently had an article he co-authored, published online titled “An Update to the American Radium Society’s Appropriate Use Criteria of Lower Grade Gliomas: Integration of IDH Inhibitors.”

Link to Article: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1k8o8cA0-IfeC

Hualin Zhang, PhD – Was awarded the Fellow of American Association of Physicists in Medicine (FAAPM)

Hualin Zhang, PhD – Had a new SFRT paper titled is ” Optimizing GRID and Lattice Spatially Fractionated Radiation Therapy: Innovative Strategies for Radioresistant and Bulky Tumor Management” published in the Journal of Seminars in Radiation Oncology

 Hualin Zhang, PhD – Had another new SFRT paper published titled The Radiosurgery Society Working Groups on GRID, LATTICE, Microbeam, and FLASH Radiotherapies: 2022 – 2023 Advancements Symposium and Subsequent Progress Made”, Pract Radiat Oncol. 2024 Oct 22: S1879. doi: 10.1016/j.prro.2024 .09.015.

Phuong Dang and Julie Shen – Our medical physics resident, Dr. Phuong Dang, won third place in the residency/Post Doctoral category at the AAPM Southern California Chapter Norm Baily Student competition. The event had 8 industry sponsorships, Dr. Zada was the keynote speaker, and event was organized by our Dr. Julie Shen.

GO2 Foundation Walk – On October 12, 2024, Dr. Ye joined the USC/Norris Cancer Center Team at the Annual GO2 SoCal Lung Cancer 5k Walk/Run. This year, the team raised over $4,000 in support of lung cancer care and research and won third place in fundraising efforts (beating City of Hope!).

Khoi Huynh, PhD – Dr. Kho Huynh, post graduate, has secured his first grant. The award is the Margaret Kersten Ponty Endowed Post doctoral Fellowship award in oncology Research at the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and will help support ongoing research efforts in Dr. Modrek’s lab

Drs. Eric Chang and Jason Ye – Were awarded an exact Sciences Grant for $20,000 to help fund the annual Breast Symposium

Aram Modrek and Syeda Narjis Fatima – Both Drs. Modrek and Fatima were awarded American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grants (ACS-IRG) by USC.

-Dr. Modrek will be utilizing the funds to conduct research Single-Molecule Techniques to Investigate DNA Damage induced Epigenetic Reprogramming.

-Dr. Fatima will be using the funds to research Deep Learning based Integrated Image Synthesis for Adaptive Radiation Therapy and Automated Treatment Planning Systems