Massimo D'Apuzzo, M.D., Ph.D.

(877) 460-4673
Massimo DApuzzo
Pathologist
Clinical Expertise
Neuropathology
Digestive System Pathology
Thoracic Pathology
Other Languages Spoken
Italian
German
French
Spanish
Appointments
Clinical Professor, Department of Pathology
Massimo D'Apuzzo, M.D., is the neuropathologist for City of Hope's Brain Tumor program. He is responsible for diagnosing the majority of brain and spinal cord cases at City of Hope.
 
Dr. D'Apuzzo earned his medical degree and a Ph.D. in immunology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He completed further training at Cal Tech, Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford University before joining City of Hope in 2007.

Location

Education & Experience

Board Certifications

  • 2006, Anatomic Pathology Board Certification

  • 2007, Neuropathology Board Certification

  • 2004, California Medical License

Degrees

  • 1997, University of Bern, Switzerland, Ph.D., Immunology

  • 1993, University of Bern, Switzerland, M.D., Medicine

Professional Experience

  • 2007 - present, Neuropathologist and Anatomic Pathologist, Department of Pathology, City of Hope, Duarte, CA

  • 2012- Neuropathologist and Anatomic Pathologist, Hoag Hospital Newport Beach, CA

  • 2004 - 2006, Neuropathology Fellow, Department of Pathology, Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto, CA

  • 2005 - 2006, Research Associate, Stem Cells, Department of Pathology, Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto, CA

  • 2002 - 2004, Anatomic Pathology Resident, Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

  • 2001 - 2002, Gastrointestinal Pathology Research Fellow, Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

  • 1998 - 2001, Postdoctoral Scholar, Neuroscience, Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA

  • 1994 - 1997, Graduate Research, Immunology, University of Bern, Switzerland

Research

Lab Members

Dr. D'Apuzzo is focusing much of his current research on cellar based therapies targeting brain tumors.  This research is clinically focused and performed in collaboration with many clinical and research colleagues at City of Hope.

Dr. D’Apuzzo research is also focused on developing new rapid diagnosis procedures. Rapid diagnoses are typically requested intraoperatively to guide the surgeon’s approach to establish the nature of a lesion, e.g., benign versus malignant, classifying and grading a tumor, confirming adequacy of a biopsy and determine the status of the resection margin. The currently utilized frozen section method, suffers from several well-known limitations including, tissue loss, freezing artifacts, suboptimal cutting of fatty specimens, inability to diagnose bony lesions and prolonged turnaround time. The Goal of Dr. D’Apuzzo’s research is to develop a multi-channel subcellular resolution photoacoustic microscopy system that addresses all of the aforementioned limitations, while providing the pathologists with diagnostic images comparable or identical to histologic slides.
 

Publications

  • Johnson BL, d'Alincourt Salazar M, Mackenzie-Dyck S, D'Apuzzo M, Shih HP, Manuel ER, Diamond DJ. Desmoplasia and oncogene driven acinar-to-ductal metaplasia are concurrent events during acinar cell-derived pancreatic cancer initiation in young adult mice. PLoS One. 2019;14(9):e0221810. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221810. eCollection 2019. PubMed PMID: 31490946; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6731019.
  • Fiani B, Quadri SA, Farooqui M, D'Apuzzo M, Rosser RJ, Berman BW, Noel J, Xin XS, Badie B, Ramachandran A, Siddiqi J. A brainstem mass of Müllerian type Epithelial Origin without any primary cancer source. J Clin Neurosci. 2019 Jan;59:325-332. doi: 10.1016/j.jocn.2018.10.016. Epub 2018 Oct 15. PubMed PMID: 30337125.
  • Javanbakht A, D'Apuzzo M, Badie B, Salehian B. Pituitary metastasis: a rare condition. Endocr Connect. 2018 Aug 23;. doi: 10.1530/EC-18-0338. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 30139817; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6198191.
  • Sahoo P, Frankel P, Ressler J, Gutova M, Annala AJ, Badie B, Portnow J, Aboody KS, D'Apuzzo M, Rockne RC. Early Changes in Tumor Perfusion from T1-Weighted Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI following Neural Stem Cell-Mediated Therapy of Recurrent High-Grade Glioma Correlate with Overall Survival. Stem Cells Int. 2018;2018:5312426. doi: 10.1155/2018/5312426. eCollection 2018. PubMed PMID: 29731779; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5872616.
  • Brown CE, Aguilar B, Starr R, Yang X, Chang WC, Weng L, Chang B, Sarkissian A, Brito A, Sanchez JF, Ostberg JR, D'Apuzzo M, Badie B, Barish ME, Forman SJ. Optimization of IL13Rα2-Targeted Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells for Improved Anti-tumor Efficacy against Glioblastoma. Mol Ther. 2018 Jan 3;26(1):31-44. doi: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2017.10.002. Epub 2017 Oct 5. PubMed PMID: 29103912; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5763077.
  • Won H, Moreira D, Gao C, Duttagupta P, Zhao X, Manuel E, Diamond D, Yuan YC, Liu Z, Jones J, D'Apuzzo M, Pal S, Kortylewski M. TLR9 expression and secretion of LIF by prostate cancer cells stimulates accumulation and activity of polymorphonuclear MDSCs. J Leukoc Biol. 2017 Aug;102(2):423-436. doi: 10.1189/jlb.3MA1016-451RR. Epub 2017 May 22. PubMed PMID: 28533357; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5505743.
  • Portnow J, Synold TW, Badie B, Tirughana R, Lacey SF, D'Apuzzo M, Metz MZ, Najbauer J, Bedell V, Vo T, Gutova M, Frankel P, Chen M, Aboody KS. Neural Stem Cell-Based Anticancer Gene Therapy: A First-in-Human Study in Recurrent High-Grade Glioma Patients. Clin Cancer Res. 2017 Jun 15;23(12):2951-2960. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-16-1518. Epub 2016 Dec 15. PubMed PMID: 27979915.
  • Brown CE, Alizadeh D, Starr R, Weng L, Wagner JR, Naranjo A, Ostberg JR, Blanchard MS, Kilpatrick J, Simpson J, Kurien A, Priceman SJ, Wang X, Harshbarger TL, D'Apuzzo M, Ressler JA, Jensen MC, Barish ME, Chen M, Portnow J, Forman SJ, Badie B. Regression of Glioblastoma after Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Therapy. N Engl J Med. 2016 Dec 29;375(26):2561-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1610497. PubMed PMID: 28029927; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5390684.
  • Zhang I, Alizadeh D, Liang J, Zhang L, Gao H, Song Y, Ren H, Ouyang M, Wu X, D'Apuzzo M, Badie B. Characterization of Arginase Expression in Glioma-Associated Microglia and Macrophages. PLoS One. 2016;11(12):e0165118. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0165118. eCollection 2016. PubMed PMID: 27936099; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5147798.
  • Shackleford GM, Shi XH, Swanson KS, Mahdi MY, Gonzalez-Gomez I, Asgharzadeh S, D'Apuzzo M, Erdreich-Epstein A, Moats RA. BarTeL, a Genetically Versatile, Bioluminescent and Granule Neuron Precursor-Targeted Mouse Model for Medulloblastoma. PLoS One. 2016;11(6):e0156907. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0156907. eCollection 2016. PubMed PMID: 27310018; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4911170.
  • D'Alincourt Salazar M, Manuel ER, Tsai W, D'Apuzzo M, Goldstein L, Blazar BR, Diamond DJ. Evaluation of innate and adaptive immunity contributing to the antitumor effects of PD1 blockade in an orthotopic murine model of pancreatic cancer. Oncoimmunology. 2016 Jun;5(6):e1160184. doi: 10.1080/2162402X.2016.1160184. eCollection 2016 Jun. PubMed PMID: 27471630; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4938374.
  • Cui Q, Yang S, Ye P, Tian E, Sun G, Zhou J, Sun G, Liu X, Chen C, Murai K, Zhao C, Azizian KT, Yang L, Warden C, Wu X, D'Apuzzo M, Brown C, Badie B, Peng L, Riggs AD, Rossi JJ, Shi Y. Downregulation of TLX induces TET3 expression and inhibits glioblastoma stem cell self-renewal and tumorigenesis. Nat Commun. 2016 Feb 3;7:10637. doi: 10.1038/ncomms10637. PubMed PMID: 26838672; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4742843.
  • Brown CE, Badie B, Barish ME, Weng L, Ostberg JR, Chang WC, Naranjo A, Starr R, Wagner J, Wright C, Zhai Y, Bading JR, Ressler JA, Portnow J, D'Apuzzo M, Forman SJ, Jensen MC. Bioactivity and Safety of IL13Rα2-Redirected Chimeric Antigen Receptor CD8+ T Cells in Patients with Recurrent Glioblastoma. Clin Cancer Res. 2015 Sep 15;21(18):4062-72. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-15-0428. Epub 2015 Jun 9. PubMed PMID: 26059190; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4632968.
  • Manuel ER, Chen J, D'Apuzzo M, Lampa MG, Kaltcheva TI, Thompson CB, Ludwig T, Chung V, Diamond DJ. Salmonella-Based Therapy Targeting Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase Coupled with Enzymatic Depletion of Tumor Hyaluronan Induces Complete Regression of Aggressive Pancreatic Tumors. Cancer Immunol Res. 2015 Sep;3(9):1096-107. doi: 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-14-0214. Epub 2015 Jul 1. PubMed PMID: 26134178; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4561205.
  • Hossain DM, Pal SK, Moreira D, Duttagupta P, Zhang Q, Won H, Jones J, D'Apuzzo M, Forman S, Kortylewski M. TLR9-Targeted STAT3 Silencing Abrogates Immunosuppressive Activity of Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells from Prostate Cancer Patients. Clin Cancer Res. 2015 Aug 15;21(16):3771-82. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-14-3145. Epub 2015 May 12. PubMed PMID: 25967142; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4537814.
  • Moreira D, Zhang Q, Hossain DM, Nechaev S, Li H, Kowolik CM, D'Apuzzo M, Forman S, Jones J, Pal SK, Kortylewski M. TLR9 signaling through NF-κB/RELA and STAT3 promotes tumor-propagating potential of prostate cancer cells. Oncotarget. 2015 Jul 10;6(19):17302-13. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.4029. PubMed PMID: 26046794; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4627309.
  • Mortimer J, Jung J, Yuan Y, Kruper L, Stewart D, Chung S, Yu KW, Mendelsohn M, D'Apuzzo M, Tegtmeier B, Dadwal S. Skin/nail infections with the addition of pertuzumab to trastuzumab-based chemotherapy. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2014 Dec;148(3):563-70. doi: 10.1007/s10549-014-3190-5. Epub 2014 Nov 11. PubMed PMID: 25385180; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4243002.
  • Wolfson J, Sun CL, Kang T, Wyatt L, D'Appuzzo M, Bhatia S. Impact of treatment site in adolescents and young adults with central nervous system tumors. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2014 Aug;106(8):dju166. doi: 10.1093/jnci/dju166. Print 2014 Aug. PubMed PMID: 25178694; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4207868.