On Oct. 5th, 2023, Sergio Piña -Oviedo, MD, presented a Grand Rounds lecture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) School of Medicine titled “Overview and Updates on Histiocytic/Dendritic Cell Disorders.” He also presented a slide conference to UNC Pathology residents and fellows showing common and rare diseases in thoracic pathology and hematopathology.
Dendritic cells notify the immune system of infection, and activate other cells to initiate adaptive immune response. Histiocytic/dendritic cell disorders are a group of rare diseases that involve an abnormal proliferation of histiocytes or dendritic cells, which are specialized white blood cells. Symptoms of these types of disorders can include persistent pain and swelling in bone, loose teeth, ear infections, lung nodules or cysts, swollen lymph nodes, and skin rashes. Recently, molecular alterations have been detected in several of these disorders opening the door to potential targeted therapies.
At Duke, Piña-Oviedo is an associate professor of Pathology, and associate director for Proteomics of the BioRepository & Precision Pathology Center (BRPC). His academic interests include the study of hematolymphoid tumors, thoracic/lung pathology, mediastinal lymphomas, the correlation between morphology and molecular alterations of tumors, infectious diseases, and the history of pathology, all which are reflected in his peer-reviewed publications (80), book chapters (25), and abstracts.
He is an editorial board member of Annals of Diagnostic Pathology; section editor in Hematopathology for Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine; associate editor in Hematologic Malignancies for Frontiers in Oncology; Topical Advisory Panel Member and Guest Editor for the journal Cancers (Basel) and Guest Editor for the online Journal of Respiration. Piña-Oviedo is also the current president of the History of Pathology Society for the term 2023-24.