Alcida “Allie” Karz, MD, PhD

Allie Karz

Undergraduate School
Duke University

Graduate School
New York University

Medical School
New York University
 

Interests & Career Goals

During grad school working in molecular cancer biology, I enjoyed chipping away at a complex, ever-evolving disease process. My goal moving forward is to continue embracing complexity, and to grow into a psychiatrist comfortable in the languages of both neuroscience and social justice. To this end I hope to use biopsychosocial approaches to investigate and treat severe and persistent mental illness. First-episode psychosis patients are a favorite population of mine and I love to work with kiddos. But of course psycho-oncology/palliative is also of interest! I’m excited about too many things in this field!

Favorite Pastimes

My husband and I co-parent a large, lazy, neurotic rescue dog. I love to eat and cook. Avid consumer of podcasts and audiobooks (physical ones too).

Strengths of the Program

Strong consult-liaison training and cutting-edge research, plus a family-friendly environment. All the residents I met on the interview trail seemed happy!

Areas of Prior Research

Molecular oncology, experimental and computational approaches. Specifically, melanoma brain metastasis and how melanoma cells survive the food/energy desert of the brain (if you’re reading this get your skin checked!!!!).

Publications/Abstracts

  • Hanniford, D., Ulloa, A., Karz, A. … Hernando, E. (2021). Epigenetic Silencing of CDR1as Drives IGF2BP3-Mediated Melanoma Invasion and Metastasis. *Cancer Cell*

  • Ho, J., Di Tullio, F., Schwarz, M., Low, M., Incarnato, D., Gay, F., Tabaglio, T., Zhang, J., Wollmann, H., Chen, L., An, O., Chan, T., Hickman, A.H., Zheng, S., Roudko, V., Chen, S., Karz, A. … Guccione, E. (2021). HNRNPM controls circRNA biogenesis and splicing fidelity to sustain cancer cell fitness. *eLife*

  • Moubarak, R.S., Pablos-Aragoneses, A. de, Ortiz-Barahona, V., Gong, Y., Gowen, M., Dolgalev, I., Shadaloey, S.A.A., Argibay, D., Karz, A., Itter, R.V. … Hernando, E. (2022). The histone demethylase PHF8 regulates TGFβ signaling and promotes melanoma metastasis. *Science Advances*

  • Kleffman, K., Levinson, G., Rose, I.V.L., Blumenberg, L.M., Shadaloey, S.A.A., Dhabaria, A., Wong, E., Galan-Echevarria, F., Karz, A., Argibay, D. … Hernando, E. (2022). Melanoma-secreted Amyloid Beta Suppresses Neuroinflammation and Promotes Brain Metastasis. *Cancer Discovery*

  • Shadaloey, A.A.S., Karz, A., Moubarak, R.S., Agrawal, P., Levinson, G., Kleffman, K., Aristizabal, O., Osman, I., Wadghiri, Y.Z., and Hernando, E. (2022). A Robust Discovery Platform for the Identification of Novel Mediators of Melanoma Metastasis. *Journal of Visualized Experiments*

  • Biermann, J., Melms, J.C., Amin, A.D., Wang, Y., Caprio, L.A., **Karz, A.,** Tagore, S., Barrera, I., Ibarra-Arellano, M.A., Andreatta, M. … Izar, B. (2022). Dissecting the treatment-naive ecosystem of human melanoma brain metastasis. *Cell*

  • Karz, A.*, Dimitrova, M.*, Kleffman, K., Alvarez-Breckenridge, C., Atkins, M.B., Boire, A., Bosenberg, M., Brastianos, P., Cahill, D.P., Chen, Q., et al. (2022). Melanoma central nervous system metastases: An update to approaches, challenges, and opportunities. *Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research*

  • Davalos, V., Lovell, C.D., Itter, R.V., Dolgalev, I., Agrawal, P., Baptiste, G., Kahler, D.J., Sokolova, E., Moran, S., Piqué, L., Vega-Saenz de Miera, E., Fontanals-Cirera, B., **Karz, A.** ... Hernando, E. (2023). An epigenetic switch controls an alternative NR2F2 isoform that unleashes a metastatic program in melanoma. *Nature Communications*

  • Karz, A.*, Coudray, N.*, Bayraktar, E., Galbraith, K., Jour, G., Shadaloey, A.A.S., Eskow, N., Rubanov, A., Navarro, M., Moubarak, R., et al. (2024). MetFinder: a neural network-based tool for automated quantitation of metastatic burden in histological sections from animal models. *Pigment Cell & Melanoma Research*

  • Soler-Sáez I, Karz A, Hidalgo MR, Gómez-Cabañes B, López-Cerdán A, Català-Senent JF, Prutisto-Chang K, Eskow NM, Izar B, Redmer T, Kumar S, Davies MA, de la Iglesia-Vayá M, Hernando E, García-García F. (2024). Unveiling common transcriptomic features between melanoma brain metastases and neurodegenerative diseases. *Journal of Investigative Dermatology*

  • Karz, A.*, Gomez-Muñoz, M.*, Navarro, M., Osorio-Vasquez, V., Katsara, O., Walker, A., Berico, P., Wan, Y., Vega Saenz de Miera, E…. Hernando, E. (2024). The dipeptidase CNDP1 supports metabolic adaptation of melanoma cells during metastasis. *bioRxiv.*

Poster Presentations

  • Karz A, Wang J, Pendergast AM. Abl kinases in breast cancer Tumor Initiating Cells (TICs). Howard Hughes Research Fellows program concluding session, Duke University, NC (July 2014).
     
  • Karz A, Overcash R, Pendergast AM. Abl2 promotes EMT and stemness in breast cancer cells. Visible Thinking Undergraduate Research Symposium, Duke University, NC (April 2016).

Oral Presentations

  • Leadership Alliance National Symposium, Stamford, CT, Aug 2016

  • NYU Perlmutter Cancer Center Seminar Series, Dec 2020

  • NYU Pathology Department Retreat, May 2021

  • MSTP Retreat, March 2022

  • Cold Spring Harbor Labs Meeting on Biology of Cancer, Aug 2023