About Us

Jennifer (Jenn) Bailey-Lundberg, MA, PhD
Principal Investigator
Dr. Bailey-Lundberg started working in research laboratories as an undergraduate student where she was awarded a two-year undergraduate research scholarship providing a stipend for her to conduct research in a physiology laboratory. She then had a unique opportunity after college to work in a laboratory at the National Institutes of Health, where she studied viral triggers of seizures in children with epilepsy. She then continued studies on the RNA structures of coxsackieviruses and completed a master’s degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 2004. As a master’s student, she was awarded the Rhoden Biological Sciences Scholarship for her work on the secondary structure of viral RNA and published her first author paper in the Journal of Virology. As a PhD student at the Eppley Institute at UNMC, she studied the role of hedgehog ligands in orchestrating desmoplasia in pancreatic cancer, and she was awarded institutional fellowships in cancer research and was selected as a mentee on an institutional NCI T32 NIH training grant. She undertook postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, where she published acinar cells could become morphologically distinct tuft cells in the contexts of pancreatitis pancreatic neoplasia. For her studies on the cell of origin in pancreatic cancer, she was awarded an F32 postdoctoral fellowship from the National Cancer Institute and the PanCAN-AACR Pathway to Leadership Award. This award enabled her to secure an independent faculty position in 2014 at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

As a Principal Investigator, her early work identified the acinar cell as a key origin for pancreatic cancer, demonstrating that in response to oncogenic mutations in Kras, Trp53, or loss of CTNND1 (p120 catenin), acinar cells undergo epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, basal cell extrusion, can form morphologically distinct tuft cells and progress toward adenocarcinoma. Her lab has also published cellular plasticity within the pancreatic ductal tree and acinar-to-ductal metaplasia, revealing crucial insights into pancreatic regeneration and exocrine pathogenesis. More recently, her lab has focused on the roles of adenosine receptors and CD73+ metaplastic ducts in chronic pancreatitis, investigating mechanisms of tissue injury and metaplasia to identify therapeutic targets.

Her research continues to uncover the complex biological mechanisms behind pancreatic diseases, with particular emphasis on pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis. Her lab explores therapeutic strategies involving immune modulation, tumor microenvironment remodeling, and cellular signaling pathways to improve patient outcomes. Utilizing advanced techniques such as scRNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics, and TCR sequencing, the lab investigates various facets of pancreatic diseases, with a special focus on oncogenic K-Ras signaling, adenosine signaling, and interventional therapies like pulse field ablation and radiofrequency ablation.

 

Shwetapadma Dash, MS
PhD Graduate Student | Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
I joined the Bailey-Lundberg Lab after completing my rotations in 2024. I completed my BS-MS dual degree at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, India. I am studying mechanistic consequences of local ablation in pancreatic cancer with a focus on metabolic changes in tumor and immune cells induced by radiofrequency ablation. I aim to target metabolic adaptations after ablation to improve the efficacy of combination therapies for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

 

Maya Patel, MS
Medical Student | Creighton University
I joined the Bailey-Lundberg Lab in 2024. I completed my undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley with a major in molecular and cell biology and a minor in data science, and I earned an MS from Tufts University. I am currently a medical student at the Creighton University School of Medicine (Class of 2027). I am studying mechanisms of ischemia-induced pancreatic edema and subsequent pancreatitis. I am from Denver, CO, and love to ski and enjoy the outdoors in any way I can!

 

Urvinder Kaur Sardarni, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow | Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology
I joined the Bailey-Lundberg Lab in 2025. I earned my PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, where I investigated the gut microbiota and immune dysregulation in perinatally HIV-infected children. As a postdoctoral researcher, I expanded my focus to the gut-lung-brain axis, studying its disruption during the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection in a hamster model. With my experience in microbiome research, my current research interest is to explore how gut microbiota influences pancreatic cancer development, progression, and response to therapy, particularly immunotherapy. I am especially interested in how microbiome modulation through diet, probiotics, or prebiotics, can enhance treatment efficacy and how microbial signatures can serve as predictive markers for cancer risk. 

 

Lincoln Strickland, BS
PhD Graduate Student | Eppley Institute for Cancer Research
I joined the Bailey-Lundberg Lab in 2021, first as a research assistant for three years after I got my bachelor's degree in microbiology at the University of Michigan. As a research assistant, I studied novel mechanisms of immunoprevention for pancreatic cancer. In the summer of 2024, the lab moved to UNMC, and now I am a PhD student in the Cancer Research Graduate Program. I study local ablation techniques including radiofrequency ablation and pulse field ablation and how they alter the local and systemic immune microenvironment in pancreatic cancer. A fun fact about me is that I have a very silly orange cat named Tortellini.

 

Casey Van Kirk, MS
Research Technologist
In 2024 I joined the Bailey-Lundberg Lab, where I am the lab’s research technologist. I hold two BS degrees from Iowa State University: one in genetics and the other in microbiology. I also earned an MS in human anatomy from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. I have expertise in immune profiling and am currently assisting with all preclinical studies. In addition to my work in the lab, I teach anatomy and physiology at a community college in the evenings. As a fun fact, I have 17 nieces and nephews, with number 18 on the way!

 

The Bailey-Lundberg Lab is currently recruiting.