Brennan Olson, PhD, is a current MS3 in the OHSU MSTP. His long-term goal is to become a physician-scientist with a clinical and basic science focus on head and neck cancer. His research prior to medical school included elucidating the role of B cell tolerance checkpoints in the development of human autoimmunity. As a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Daniel Marks, his focus was two-fold in identifying novel cancer-derived factors that mediate disease-associated wasting, or cachexia, and establishing robust model systems of cancer cachexia. Through this work, he identified Lipocalin 2 (LCN2) as a novel mediator of cancer-associated appetite suppression, demonstrating LCN2 levels were closely associated with muscle and fat wasting in both rodent and human cancer cachexia (Olson et al, Nature Communications 2021). Given the lack of clinically applicable head and neck cancer cachexia models, he next established a high-fidelity mouse model of HPV+ head and neck cancer cachexia (Olson et al, JCSM 2021). Clinically, his research is focused on identifying prognostic markers and risk-stratification techniques for patients with head and neck cancer, including sarcopenia, adipose wasting, and novel detection methods for tumor spread (Olson et al, JAMA Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery 2020). He plans to continue using these model systems and techniques to identify novel treatment strategies for patients suffering from head and neck cancer. In his spare time, he enjoys playing basketball, golf, and spending time with his family. 

Dissertation Title: Lipocalin 2 as a mediator of cancer cachexia