{"id":27961,"date":"2026-05-13T14:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/?p=27961"},"modified":"2026-05-13T14:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:34:17","slug":"congratulations-to-our-new-phd-michael-sturdivant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/congratulations-to-our-new-phd-michael-sturdivant\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations to our new PhD, Michael Sturdivant!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Sturdivant successfully defended his PhD thesis, “The Distinct Roles of APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B in APOBEC3-Driven Mutagenesis in Urothelial Carcinoma,” under the mentorship of the Dr. William Kim.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/a>
Dr. Sturdivant with faculty mentor, Dr. William Kim<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Sturdivant’s new position will be as a\u00a0 Postdoctoral Research Associate.<\/p>\n

Publications<\/h2>\n

Tumor-derived Extracellular Vesicles Induce ER Stress to Drive Tolerogenic Dendritic Cell Development in the Tumor Microenvironment.\u00a0<\/a>Wang X, Plebanek MP, Nguyen YV, Bazaz MR, Sturdivant M,<\/strong> Theivanthiran B, Hanks BA.\u00a0bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2026 Feb 12:2026.02.10.705213. doi: 10.64898\/2026.02.10.705213.\u00a0PMID:\u00a041727176.\u00a0PMC12918792<\/p>\n

APOBEC3 promotes squamous differentiation via IL-1A\/AP-1 signaling.<\/a>\u00a0Sturdivant MS,<\/strong> Truong AS, Zhou M, Toomer ED, Beckabir W, Raupp J, Manocha U, Zambrano IA, Tan HJ, Bjurlin MA, Smith AB, Rose TL, Milowsky MI, Wobker SE, Gessner KH, Damrauer JS, Kim WY.\u00a0Nat Commun. 2025 Dec 14;17(1):334. doi: 10.1038\/s41467-025-67033-8.\u00a0 PMID:\u00a041390483<\/p>\n

GLI2 Facilitates Tumor Immune Evasion and Immunotherapeutic Resistance by Coordinating WNT and Prostaglandin Signaling.\u00a0<\/a>DeVito NC, Nguyen YV, Sturdivant M<\/strong>, Plebanek MP, Villarreal KA, Yarla N, Jain V, Aksu M, Beasley GM, Theivanthiran B, Hanks BA.\u00a0Cancer Res. 2025 May 2;85(9):1644-1662. doi: 10.1158\/0008-5472.CAN-24-1130. PMID:\u00a039970333<\/p>\n

Poor Prognosis among Radiation-Associated Bladder Cancer Is Defined by Clinicogenomic Features.\u00a0<\/a>Wijetunga NA, Gessner KH, Kanchi K, Moore JA, Fleischmann Z, Jin DX, Frampton GM, Sturdivant M,<\/strong> Repka M, Sud S, Corcoran DL, Galsky MD, Milowsky MI, Wobker SE, Kim WY, Rose TL, Damrauer JS.\u00a0Cancer Res Commun. 2024 Sep 1;4(9):2320-2334. doi: 10.1158\/2767-9764.CRC-24-0352.\u00a0PMID:\u00a039113632<\/p>\n

Influenza Virus and SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines. <\/a>Sandor AM, Sturdivant MS<\/strong>, Ting JPY.\u00a0J Immunol. 2021 Jun 1;206(11):2509-2520. doi: 10.4049\/jimmunol.2001287. Epub 2021 May 21.\u00a0PMID:\u00a034021048<\/p>\n

Pharmacological Wnt ligand inhibition overcomes key tumor-mediated resistance pathways to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy.\u00a0<\/a> DeVito NC, Sturdivant M,<\/strong> Thievanthiran B, Xiao C, Plebanek MP, Salama AKS, Beasley GM, Holtzhausen A, Novotny-Diermayr V, Strickler JH, Hanks BA.\u00a0Cell Rep. 2021 May 4;35(5):109071. doi:\u00a0 10.1016\/j.celrep.2021.109071. PMID:\u00a033951424<\/p>\n

Role of dendritic cell metabolic reprogramming in tumor immune evasion.\u00a0<\/a>Plebanek MP, Sturdivant M,<\/strong> DeVito NC, Hanks BA.\u00a0Int Immunol. 2020 Jun 26;32(7):485-491. doi: 10.1093\/intimm\/dxaa036.\u00a0PMID:\u00a032449776<\/p>\n

A tumor-intrinsic PD-L1\/NLRP3 inflammasome signaling pathway drives resistance to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy.\u00a0<\/a> Theivanthiran B, Evans KS, DeVito NC, Plebanek M, Sturdivant M,<\/strong> Wachsmuth LP, Salama AK, Kang Y, Hsu D, Balko JM, Johnson DB, Starr M, Nixon AB, Holtzhausen A, Hanks BA.\u00a0J Clin Invest. 2020 May 1;130(5):2570-2586. doi: 10.1172\/JCI133055.\u00a0PMID:\u00a032017708<\/p>\n

Honors, Awards & Highlights<\/h2>\n
2026 Honored as UNC Prestigious External Fellowship Winner at the UNC Graduate Student Recognition Celebration, recognizing graduate and professional students for outstanding achievement in research, community service, teaching and leadership during academic year 2025-2026.<\/div>\n
2026 Graduate Fellow Award in Basic Science, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center<\/div>\n
2025 UNC Lineberger CRTEC Travel Award<\/div>\n
2025 The Harper Family Graduate Student Award, UNC Department of Pharmacology<\/div>\n
2024 Scholar in Training Travel Award,\u00a0AACR Bladder Cancer Conference<\/div>\n
2024\u00a0NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA (F31) Fellowship<\/div>\n
2023 Best Poster Presentation, UNC Pharmacology Research Retreat<\/div>\n
2022 Chair\u2019s Award, UNC Department of Pharmacology<\/div>\n
2021 NCI Cancer Cell Biology T32 Predoctoral Training Grant<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We wish you all the best, Michael!<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Sturdivant successfully defended his PhD thesis, “The Distinct Roles of APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B in APOBEC3-Driven Mutagenesis in Urothelial Carcinoma,” under the mentorship of the Dr. William Kim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22429,"featured_media":27964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,2,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-student-postdoc-news","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/Michael-Sturdivant-phd-250.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/Michael-Sturdivant-phd-250.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/Michael-Sturdivant-phd-250.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/Michael-Sturdivant-phd-250.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/05\/Michael-Sturdivant-phd-250-150x150.jpg","featured_image_alt":"Michael Sturdivant, PhD","category_details":[{"name":"Featured News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/featured\/"},{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/news\/"},{"name":"Student & Postdoc News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/news\/student-postdoc-news\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27961"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27980,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27961\/revisions\/27980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}