Sarah A. Mazzilli, PhD

Assistant Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

Investigating the molecular events associated with the progression of premalignant squamous lung lesions for targeted chemoprevention.

Lung cancer kills more individuals in the United States annually than breast, colon and prostate cancers combined. Reduction of lung cancer mortality may be achieved by identification of those at the high risk of developing cancer, in addition to finding effective agents in which to intervene in the process. There has been limited success of candidate chemopreventive agents in lung cancer as most have selected based on work in pre-clinical models that do not adequately represent the precancerous and early stage lesions that are the focus in clinical chemoprevention trials for lung cancer. The interests of our laboratory involve developing models to aid in the understanding of the epithelial and immune modulations that are involved in the progression and regression of premalignant squamous lesions to frank lung squamous cell carcinoma with a particular focus on identifying and testing targeted agents on appropriate models that allow for translation to clinical intervention studies. To do this the our lab utilized novel single cell and multiplex imaging technologies to characterize the immune and epithelial alterations enabling lung carcinogenesis and study mechanisms to intercept this process. Our lab also works closely with members of the section of Computational Biomedicine as well as national and international collaborators on the Pre-Cancer Genome Atlas (PCGA) and the NCI- Human Tumor Atlas leading the effort to further understand the molecular underpinnings of lung cancer development to advance early detection and intervention.

Publications

  • Published 1/18/2026

    Xi ZH, Koga Y, McDermott S, Kane EE, Pfefferkorn R, Billatos E, Hosking PR, Beane JE, Burks EJ, Mazzilli SA, Suzuki K, Campbell JD. Multimodal single-cell and spatial profiling reveals altered T cell-mediated immunity and B-cell follicular architecture in non-metastatic lymph nodes of patients with aggressive non-small cell lung cancer. medRxiv. 2026 Jan 18. PMID: 41646724.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 10/6/2025

    Anderson KE, Tran LM, Krysan K, Kefella Y, Yu L, Fishbein GA, Rodriguez E, Shabihkhani M, Stefanko DP, Green E, Liu G, Liu H, Zhang S, Kane E, Mehrad M, Spira AE, Dubinett SM, Burks EJ, Mazzilli SA, Lenburg ME, Beane JE. Archetype analysis of lung adenocarcinoma premalignancy links heterogeneity in premalignant lesions to diverging features of invasive disease. bioRxiv. 2025 Oct 06. PMID: 41278661.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 9/17/2025

    Butler MLMD, Pervaiz N, Breen K, Calderazzo S, Ypsilantis P, Wang Y, Breda JC, Mazzilli S, Nicks R, Spurlock E, Hefti MM, Fiock KL, Huber BR, Alvarez VE, Stein TD, Campbell JD, McKee AC, Cherry JD. Repeated head trauma causes neuron loss and inflammation in young athletes. Nature. 2025 Nov; 647(8088):228-237. PMID: 40963024.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 6/12/2025

    Xu L, Kefella Y, Zhang Y, Conrad RD, Anderson KE, Krysan K, Liu G, Kane E, Pennycuick A, Janes SM, Reid ME, Burks EJ, Billatos E, Mazzilli SA, Kolachalama VB, Beane JE. Attention-based deep learning for analysis of pathology images and gene expression data in lung squamous premalignant lesions. medRxiv. 2025 Jun 12. PMID: 40585088.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 5/15/2025

    Arroyo-Ataz G, Yagüe AC, Breda JC, Mazzilli SA, Jones D. Single-Cell Transcriptomics and Lineage Tracing Unveil Parallels in Lymphatic Muscle and Venous Smooth Muscle Development, Identity, and Function. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2025 Jul; 45(7):1207-1225. PMID: 40371470.

    Read at: PubMed

View All 36 Publications:   View Full Profile in BUMC

Other Positions

  • Member, Genome Science Institute
    Boston University
  • Member, BU-BMC Cancer Center
    Boston University
  • Member, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
    Boston University

Websites

Education

  • University at Buffalo, PhD
  • University at Buffalo, MS
  • Bridgewater State University, BS

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