Marika Klosowski
Postdoctoral Fellow
I grew up in the small town of Skaneateles, in the Finger Lakes region of Central New York. I’ve loved animals for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I wanted nothing more than to get a dog. Understandably, my parents weren’t up for any pets at that point, so I settled for pet guinea pigs and got my dog fix through pet sitting for our neighbors. I also fell in love with horseback riding as a kid and rode at the local barn through my adolescence and during veterinary school.
I earned my bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Wisconsin and completed the veterinary medicine program at the University of Minnesota. While I had entered veterinary school intending to become a general practitioner, I discovered a love for research through the Boehringer-Ingelheim Veterinary Summer Scholars Program. This program is designed to provide hands-on research experience for veterinary medical students and my time working in cancer biology labs during this program sparked an interest in this subject area and set me on the path toward pursuing a career as a veterinary researcher.
I am now a trainee in the CSU Veterinary Pathology Residency/PhD Combined Training Program. I have recently completed the residency portion of my training and am now board-certified as a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Pathology in Clinical Pathology. My PhD research and training as part of this program is conducted under the mentorship of Dr. Regan as a member of his Investigational Pathology laboratory.
While completing the clinical pathology residency portion of my training, I split my time between working in the research lab and learning to read diagnostic cytology, hematology, and clinical chemistry cases with the clinical pathology faculty in the diagnostic medicine center. Now as a full-time PhD student I spend the majority of my time in lab and classes, though I still get to read some diagnostic pathology cases to keep my skills sharp!
I was drawn toward oncology research by multiple threads of interest. Like many of us, I have lost multiple loved ones to cancer. As a veterinary scientist in training, I am drawn toward veterinary and comparative oncology for the opportunity to participate in research that helps all species fight cancer. As a pathologist, I am pulled by a fascination with understanding this complex disease that arises from and co-opts our own body systems to sustain itself.
My current projects center around understanding how normal connective tissue cells (fibroblasts) that reside in the lung are co-opted by metastatic cancer cells to contribute to cancer cell growth and therapy resistance. Our goal is to use this knowledge to develop more effective treatments for cancers that spread to the lungs. The newest project I am working on is looking at the use of genetically engineered immune cells (CAR T cells) to target a surface protein that is present on both bone cancer (osteosarcoma) cells and tumor-supporting lung fibroblasts. We will be conducting a clinical trial evaluating the safety and feasibility of this treatment in dogs, with the goal of informing future trials of this treatment in dogs and eventually people with metastatic osteosarcoma.
Another part of my job that I really enjoy is teaching and mentoring veterinary students. My exposure to research as a veterinary student changed the course of my career, so I’ve loved helping to give veterinary students positive first experiences with oncology research by participating in the Veterinary Summer Scholars Program at CSU as a project co-mentor.
When I’m not working, I enjoy getting outdoors through hiking, backpacking, rock climbing, and biking as well as developing my skills as a very amateur ceramics artist. My pets include Cedar, a German Shepherd/Saint Bernard Mix; Ginkgo, a Domestic Shorthair cat; and a small backyard chicken flock.