Dr. Nusayba Bagegni joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Oncology as an Assistant Professor in August, 2018.
After receiving a B.S. degree in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Missouri-Columbia, Summa Cum Laude, Dr. Bagegni graduated with Research Distinction from the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. She completed post graduate training in Internal Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine/Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and served as a BMT Hospitalist in the Division of Hospital Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine. She then completed sub-specialty training in Hematology/Oncology at Washington University in St Louis School of Medicine where she served as Co-Chief Fellow for two years. She also participated in the R25 STRENGTH Cancer Genomics & Outcomes Research Program.
Dr. Bagegni’s clinical interests include caring for patients with breast and GI malignancies. She has been involved in medical student teaching during Practice of Medicine II sessions. She participates in teaching of fellows in clinic, including trainees in hematology/oncology and breast surgery programs. Her research interests focus on understanding clinical and molecular/genetic predictors of therapeutic resistance and recurrence in breast cancer, and designing clinical trials to investigate novel breast and GI cancer treatment strategies to improve long term patient outcomes. She is particularly interested in studying aggressive subgroups of breast cancer, including HER2-amplified breast cancer, and breast cancer in young women. One of her ongoing projects is focused on assessing potential clinical and tumor tissue genomic-based predictors of achieving complete pathologic response following neoadjuvant treatment in HER2-positive breast cancer. She is also collecting genomic data (next-generation sequencing of tumor tissue and/or cell-free circulating tumor DNA) at times of disease progression, with goal to ultimately study alterations in mutational patterns following systemic therapy exposure in patients with metastatic breast cancer.