MIHAELA CHIVU-ECONOMESCU is principal investigator at Cellular and Molecular Pathology Department of Stefan S Nicolau Virology Institute. She has more than 21 years of experience in biomedical research filed. Through her projects she contributed to advances in biomedical research areas of oncobiology with emphasis on gastrointestinal cancers, signal transduction, targeted anti-tumor therapy, and immunotherapy.   Current projects are aiming to explore the immunecheckpoints in gastric cancer molecular subtypes, and to combine targeted strategy with immunotherapy, creating the unique opportunity to personalize novel immunotherapies based on disease subtype.   Main achievements in the gastroenterology field are: - Testing and validation of some gastric cancer biomarkers (ETS-1, Serpin-1, KRT17) by RNA-interference method; the results were published in Cancer Gene Therapy, 2009, Digestive and Liver Disease 2012, Gastric Cancer 2017 respectively, depicting inhibitory effects on angiogenesis and tumor cell proliferation in gastric and pancreatic cancers. - Identification of new biomarkers involved in progression and metastasis of gastro-intestinal cancers that have the potential to become new targets for tumor therapy;     the results were published journals such as: Hepato-Gastroenterology 2010, Journal of Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease 2012, Pancreas 2012, Gastric Cancer 2017. - Development of a culture system for obtaining hepatocytes through human mesenchymal stem cells in vitro trans differentiation, as well as identifying HGF and nicotinamide as factors with the greatest potential hepatogen; the results were published in Translational Research in 2009.