Jody Fromm Longo, Ph.D.

Jody Fromm Longo, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine within the School of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).

Dr. Fromm Longo received her bachelor's degree in chemistry/biochemistry from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN in 1994. She worked with Dr. Arnold Stein for her undergraduate research project on the development of miniaturized DNA sequencing gels for rapid Sangar sequencing. She obtained her Ph.D. in molecular biology and biochemistry from the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, CA in 2007. There she studied oncogenic EGFR activation of Ras-mediated transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in glioblastoma-multiforme tumors (GBM) under Dr. Deborah L. Johnson.

She performed her postdoctoral training in cancer biology and genetics with Karen Cichowski at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA. There she studied hyperactive Ras signaling mediated by loss of a RasGAP tumor suppressor called neurofibromin in GBM tumors and in patients with the disease Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) afflicted with malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs). Her focus was on signal transduction and preclinical drug studies for these Ras-driven tumor types.

She relocated to Charleston, SC and joined the Medical University of South Carolina in 2014 as a Staff Scientist in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine with Dr. Steven Carroll. Her research focus at MUSC has continued to be focused on therapeutic development for MPNSTs, a Schwann cell derived Ras-driven tumor type. Her research endeavors are centered around therapeutically targeting Ras-driven tumors mediated by aberrant upstream activation of EGFR or erbB receptors or loss of the tumor suppressor neurofibromin (negative regulator of Ras). Her approaches include bioinformatic assessment of the transcriptome and mutational profile of human tumors and cell lines as well as validation studies using cell-based assays and animal models.

In September 2020, she joined the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine faculty as a Research Assistant Professor. Her current research focus is centered around bioinformatics and novel roles of neurofibromin outside of its RasGAP activity in Schwann cells.