Guru Sonpavde1, Jin Ye Yeo2
1AdventHealth Cancer Institute and the University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA; 2TAU Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company
Correspondence to: Jin Ye Yeo. TAU Editorial Office, AME Publishing Company. Email: tau@amepc.org
This interview can be cited as: Sonpavde G, Yeo JY. Meeting the Editorial Board Member of TAU: Dr. Guru Sonpavde. Transl Androl Urol. 2025. Available from: https://tau.amegroups.org/post/view/meeting-the-editorial-board-member-of-tau-dr-guru-sonpavde.
Expert introduction
Dr. Guru Sonpavde (Figure 1) is the Director of Genitourinary (GU) Oncology and Phase I Research as well as the Christopher K. Glanz Chair for Bladder Cancer Research at the AdventHealth Cancer Institute, Orlando, Florida. Additionally, he holds a position of Professor of Medicine at the University of Central Florida. Previously, he was Bladder Cancer Director at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2017-2022, GU Oncology Director and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 2012 to 2017 and practiced from 2004 to 2012 at Texas Oncology, a US Oncology affiliate. His focus is drug development (including early development Phase I clinical trials and later Phase II/III trials) evaluating novel and emerging classes of treatments across solid tumors and clinical/translational research to cure GU cancers with a focus on bladder cancer. He serves on the steering committees of several pivotal phase III trials evaluating treatments for bladder cancer. His research efforts have led to ~500 publications. He also enjoys interacting with medical residents and fellows in order to teach and mentor research projects leading to presentations and publications. He is a member of the Southwest Oncology Group, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN), and the Bladder Cancer Task Force of the U.S. NCI GU Steering Committee. He has also been cited in several lay magazine articles, notably in TIME magazine regarding participation in clinical trials in August 2022: https://time.com/6210644/bladder-cancer-clinical-trials/.
Figure 1 Dr. Guru P. Sonpavde
Interview
TAU: What drove you into the field of genitourinary oncology?
Dr. Sonpavde: I have been interested in urologic medical oncology since my days of training in the Hematology-oncology fellowship at Indiana University Medical Center. There appeared to be greater unmet needs for translational and clinical research in urologic cancers, especially bladder cancer as opposed to some of the other cancers such as lung, breast, and colon cancer.
TAU: Since you have a strong research background in bladder cancer, could you give us a general picture of the publication area in bladder cancer? Were there any articles in recent years that impressed you?
Dr. Sonpavde: There have been multiple advances in the therapeutic landscape of bladder cancer in the recent few years. In particular, the therapy of advanced urothelial carcinoma has dramatically changed in the first-line setting. Initially, platinum-based chemotherapy followed by maintenance avelumab improved outcomes. More recently, the combination of enfortumab, vedotin, and pembrolizumab, as well as the combination of cisplatin, gemcitabine, and nivolumab, also improved survival. Moreover, perioperative therapy has also seen rapid advances with the arrival of immune checkpoint inhibitors as well as the use of circulating tumor DNA for better selection of patients for perioperative therapy. Bladder preservation for muscle-invasive bladder cancer has seen momentum behind it, which needs better clinical staging approaches to enable proper execution. Thus, I believe that the biology of bladder cancer is being better understood, and this has enabled rapid improvements in systemic therapy as well as intravesical therapy for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer with the advent of novel intravesical therapies as well as novel devices such as the pretzel-shaped device for sustained delivery of intravesical therapy.
TAU: You are currently part of the steering committees of several clinical trials of bladder cancer, with a focus on improving patient outcomes and standard of care. What are some gaps in the current standard of care that these clinical trials aim to tackle?
Dr. Sonpavde: Given the rapid improvement in understanding the biology of bladder cancer, better therapeutic agents have been developed. Now, there is a need to better understand resistance mechanisms as well as optimal combination approaches to improve outcomes and cure more patients. Some of the most exciting trials I am now involved in are combining perioperative immunotherapy with novel customized neo-antigen targeting immunotherapy as well as novel combinations of active agents such as enfortumab vedotin (EV) plus erdafitinib and the combination of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) EV + sacituzumab govitecan as well as combining this novel double ADC regimen with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Simultaneously, precision medicine needs to be developed with the use of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to escalate or de-escalate adjuvant immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, select patients for targeted agents, and develop FGFR 3-specific agents, as well as other agents with a better therapeutic index.
TAU: Have there been any promising findings in your study of novel immunotherapy for bladder cancer? How have these findings affected your current/future research direction?
Dr. Sonpavde: Recent promising developments have included combinations of immune checkpoint inhibitors with cytotoxic agents, such as the combination of enfortumab vedotin plus pembrolizumab as well as cisplatin gemcitabine and nivolumab, which have improved outcomes. There are now efforts to further build upon these combinations. For example, the combination of enfortumab vedotin and sacituzumab gocitecan appeared promising, and further development of this combination to combine with pembrolizumab is underway, which hopefully will lead to further advances and potentially cure more patients. Similarly, the combination of fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibition and immune checkpoint inhibition has appeared promising and might provide an increment in activity. Further development of this strategy, along with the potential addition of enfortumab vedotin to this combination or sequencing these agents in a rational manner, might be considered. Additionally, several novel ADCs have shown preliminary promise and are being developed, e.g., disitamab vedotin, datopotamab deruxtecan, and BL-B01D1. The discovery of novel therapeutic targets and drugs that can be repurposed to treat bladder cancer are also important avenues of research.
TAU: In a recent interview, you shared that identifying biomarkers are potential next steps of the CheckMate 901 trial. Could you elaborate on how you derived this opinion, and whether this will be part of your future research?
Dr. Sonpavde: While the combination of nivolumab with cisplatin plus gemcitabine improved survival modestly, there was a huge improvement in outcomes in patients who demonstrated complete responses. Approximately 22% of patients demonstrated complete responses, and their median duration of complete response was ~37 months. Upon further examining this trial, approximately 18% of patients had lymph node-only metastases, and these patients had approximately 63% complete remission rate and a median survival of almost 4 years and a proportion enjoyed treatment-free intervals, suggesting that a proportion of these patients may be cured. Therefore, an effort to identify these complete responders and to improve upon the ability to predict complete responses is imperative. For example, molecular studies of tumor tissue, computational pathology, and other modalities might enable the development of a predictive biomarker to select patients for gemcitabine cisplatin plus nivolumab who might develop a complete remission leading to a potential cure.
TAU: Other than being the Medical Director of Genitourinary Oncology, you have also published more than 500 publications and are part of several professional organizations. How do you manage your time and energy in juggling your professional commitments?
Dr. Sonpavde: Developing a clinical research career as well as other areas of life is important to sustain and maintain balance. Therefore, I personally pay significant attention to physical fitness as well as maintain other interests and hobbies such as astronomy, cosmology, ancient history, and geopolitics.
TAU: How has your experience been as an Editorial Board Member of TAU?
Dr. Sonpavde: I have had an excellent experience as an editorial board member of TAU. I have been given opportunities to voice my opinion and peer review in an effective manner.
TAU: As an Editorial Board Member of TAU, what are your expectations for TAU?
Dr. Sonpavde: As an editorial board member of TAU, I expect the journal to increase the publications of high-impact original research papers, cutting-edge editorials, and review papers. Original research can include clinical research, translational research, or basic research, accompanied by cutting-edge editorials and commentaries to improve the value to the reader. The presentation could be in an easy-to-understand format for not only the investigator reading it but also the community oncologist who is trying to understand the science.