Deborah Plana profile picture

Deborah Plana

MD-PhD Candidate at Harvard Medical School and MIT

Education

Medical Scientist Training Program, MD-PhD

Harvard Medical School and MIT
2017 - current

Bachelor of Science in Biological Engineering

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2013 - 2017

About me

I am an MD-PhD student in the Harvard‐MIT Health Sciences and Technology program and the Harvard Systems Biology program. I work with Peter Sorger from the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and Adam Palmer from the UNC School of Medicine.

My work aims to improve survival outcomes for cancer patients. Towards this goal, I have helped develop tools for the analysis of drug efficacy data from clinical trials and preclinical experiments, and applied these methods to find patient subgroups most responsive to cancer drugs, discover drug-response biomarkers, and identify new promising cancer combination therapies. You can learn more about this research through my Google Scholar, Harvard Catalyst, and ORCID profiles.

Selected media coverage of my work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic includes articles in Healthline Media, Yahoo Finance, Harvard Medicine News, and Harvard Crimson.

I am grateful for generous support from the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program and the NCI Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service F30 Award.

Previously, I earned my undergraduate degree in Biological Engineering at MIT with a minor in Statistics and Data Science and worked in the lab of Douglas Lauffenburger.

Publications and preprints

*Denotes equal contributions

  • Cancer patient survival can be accurately parameterized, revealing time-dependent therapeutic effects and doubling the precision of small trials. (bioRxiv, 2021).
    • Plana, D., Fell, G., Alexander, B. M., Palmer, A. C. *, & Sorger, P. K. *
  • Assessing the quality of nontraditional N95 filtering face-piece respirators available during the COVID-19 pandemic. (BMC Infectious Diseases, 2021).
    • Plana, D.*, Tian, E.*, Cramer, A. K.*, Yang, H.*, Carmack, M. M., Sinha, M. S., Bourgeois, F. T., Yu, S. H., Masse, P., Boyer, J., Kim, M., Mo, J., LeBoeuf, N. R., Li, J., & Sorger, P. K.
  • Analysis of SteraMist ionized hydrogen peroxide technology in the sterilization of N95 respirators and other PPE. (Scientific Reports, 2021).
    • Cramer, A. K.*, Plana, D.*, Yang, H.*, Carmack, M. M., Tian, E., Sinha, M. S., Krikorian, D., Turner, D., Mo, J., Li, J., Gupta, R., Manning, H., Bourgeois, F. T., Yu, S. H., Sorger, P. K., & LeBoeuf, N. R.
  • A Crisis-Responsive Framework for Medical Device Development Applied to the COVID-19 Pandemic. (Frontiers in Digital Health, 2021).
    • Antonini, M.-J.*, Plana, D.*, Srinivasan, S.*, Atta, L., Achanta, A., Yang, H., Cramer, A. K., Freake, J., Sinha, M. S., Yu, S. H., LeBoeuf, N. R., Linville-Engler, B., & Sorger, P. K.
  • De novo Powered Air-Purifying Respirator Design and Fabrication for Pandemic Response. (Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 2021).
    • Kothakonda, A.*, Atta, L.*, Plana, D.*, Ward, F.*, Davis, C., Cramer, A., Moran, R., Freake, J., Tian, E., Mazor, O., Gorelik, P., Van, C., Hansen, C., Yang, H., Sinha, M. S., Li, J., Yu, S. H., LeBoeuf, N. R., & Sorger, P. K.
  • 3D Printed frames to enable reuse and improve the fit of N95 and KN95 respirators. (BMC Biomedical Engineering, 2021).
    • McAvoy, M.*, Bui, A.-T. N.*, Hansen, C.*, Plana, D.*, Said, J. T., Yu, Z., Yang, H., Freake, J., Van, C., Krikorian, D., Cramer, A., Smith, L., Jiang, L., Lee, K. J., Li, S. J., Beller, B., Huggins, K., Short, M. P., Yu, S. H., Mostaghimi, A., Sorger, P. K., & LeBoeuf, N. R.
  • Conversion of Existing UVB Phototherapy Units to UVC Germicidal Chambers for N95 Decontamination; Lessons Learned. (Photobiomodulation, Photomedicine, and Laser Surgery, 2021).
    • Kassamali, B., Yu, Z., Davis, C., Carmack, M., Bui, A.-T. N., Said, J. T., Plana, D., Yang, H., Sorger, P., LeBoeuf, N. R., & LaChance, A. H.
  • A Proof of Concept for Biomarker-Guided Targeted Therapy against Ovarian Cancer Based on Patient-Derived Tumor Xenografts. (Cancer Research, 2020).
    • Palmer, A. C.*, Plana, D.*, Gao, H.*, Korn, J. M., Yang, G., Green, J., Zhang, X., Velazquez, R., McLaughlin, M. E., Ruddy, D. A., Kowal, C., Muszynski, J., Bullock, C., Rivera, S., Rakiec, D. P., Elliott, G., Fordjour, P., Meyer, R., Loo, A., … Sorger, P. K.
  • Comparing the Efficacy of Cancer Therapies between Subgroups in Basket Trials. (Cell Systems, 2020).
    • Palmer, A. C.*, Plana, D.*, & Sorger, P. K.
  • Regulatory and Safety Considerations in Deploying a Locally Fabricated, Reusable Face Shield in a Hospital Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic. (Med, 2020).
    • Mostaghimi, A.*, Antonini, M.-J.*, Plana, D.*, Anderson, P. D., Beller, B., Boyer, E. W., Fannin, A., Freake, J., Oakley, R., Sinha, M. S., Smith, L., Van, C., Yang, H., Sorger, P. K., LeBoeuf, N. R., & Yu, S. H.
  • Considerations for the Selection and Use of Disinfectants Against SARS-CoV-2 in a Health Care Setting. (Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 2020).
    • Tyan, K., Levin, A., Avalos-Pacheco, A., Plana, D., Rand, E. A., Yang, H., Maliszewski, L. E., Chylek, L. A., Atta, L., Tye, M. A., Carmack, M. M., Oglesby, N. S., Burgin, S., Yu, S. H., LeBoeuf, N. R., & Kemp, J. M.
  • Plasma-derived extracellular vesicle analysis and deconvolution enable prediction and tracking of melanoma checkpoint blockade outcome. (Science Advances, 2020).
    • Shi, A., Kasumova, G. G., Michaud, W. A., Cintolo-Gonzalez, J., Díaz-Martínez, M., Ohmura, J., Mehta, A., Chien, I., Frederick, D. T., Cohen, S., Plana, D., Johnson, D., Flaherty, K. T., Sullivan, R. J., Kellis, M., & Boland, G. M.
  • Biomarker-driven strategy for MCL1 inhibition in T-cell lymphomas. (Blood, 2019).
    • Koch, R., Christie, A. L., Crombie, J. L., Palmer, A. C., Plana, D., Shigemori, K., Morrow, S. N., Van Scoyk, A., Wu, W., Brem, E. A., Secrist, J. P., Drew, L., Schuller, A. G., Cidado, J., Letai, A., & Weinstock, D. M.
  • Synergistic Communication between CD4+ T Cells and Monocytes Impacts the Cytokine Environment. (Scientific Reports, 2016).
    • Schrier, S. B., Hill, A. S., Plana, D., & Lauffenburger, D. A.