Katherine Arbanasin, Ph. D.

Dr. Katherine Arbanasin is a carcinoid patient and chemist.

Dr. Arbanasin received her S. B. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

While in Boston, she also gained a few years of medically related research experience. She worked on water solubilization of Vitamin D with Dr. Michael F. Holick (MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital) and on isolation and purification of membrane bound proteins with Dr. J. Enrique Silva (Brigham and Women’s Hospital).

Dr. Arbanasin did her graduate work with Professor K. C. Nicolaou at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph. D. in organic chemistry in 1993. Her dissertation was on studies towards the total synthesis of nystatin A1.

Dr. Arbanasin went on to Stanford University on an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Molecular Studies of Evolution. She hoped to pursue an academic career. She was interested in studying the origin of life and in using chemistry to develop new treatments for disease. Her career got cut short after she found herself too ill to continue her research soon after she got to Stanford. It was several more years before her lung carcinoid cancer was diagnosed.

Dr. Arbanasin currently leads the Northern California Neuroendocrine Cancer Fighters, a local neuroendocrine cancer support group.

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