Sorbarikor Piawah, MD
Assistant Professor
Medicine
School of Medicine

Piawah has a background in public health research, particularly in health care disparities among racial and ethnic minorities and low-income patients with cancer. Her current research is focused on understanding the roles that the gut microbiome (the population of microorganisms living in the intestinal tract), diet and lifestyle play in disparities among those with colorectal cancer and on designing therapies that target these factors.

Piawah earned her medical degree at Harvard Medical School and a master of public health degree at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, one of Harvard's teaching hospitals. She completed a fellowship in hematology and oncology at UCSF.

Piawah belongs to the American Society of Clinical Oncology. She has received awards for her research from the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and UCSF Center for Aging in Diverse Communities.

In her free time, Piawah enjoys painting and learning to garden.

• Association between adherence to the American Cancer Society Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines and stool frequency among colon cancer survivors: a cohort study.
  Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice 2022 Greenberg AL, Tolstykh IV, Van Loon K, Laffan A, Stanfield D, Steiding P, Kenfield SA, Chan JM, Atreya CE, Piawah S, Kidder W, Venook AP, Van Blarigan EL, Varma MG
• Phase II study of pembrolizumab plus capecitabine and bevacizumab in microsatellite stable (MSS) metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).
  Journal of Clinical Oncology 2022 Andrea Grace Bocobo, Renee Wang, Spencer Behr, Julia C. Carnevale, Pelin Cinar, Eric Andrew Collisson, Lawrence Fong, Bridget P Keenan, Wesley Allen Kidder, Andrew H. Ko, Kanti Pallav Kolli, Megan …
• The Gut Microbiome in Colorectal Cancer.
  Hematology/oncology clinics of North America 2022 Piawah S, Walker EJ, Van Blarigan EL, Atreya CE
• Survival in Young-Onset Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Findings From Cancer and Leukemia Group B (Alliance)/SWOG 80405.
  Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2022 Lipsyc-Sharf M, Zhang S, Ou FS, Ma C, McCleary NJ, Niedzwiecki D, Chang IW, Lenz HJ, Blanke CD, Piawah S, Van Loon K, Bainter TM, Venook AP, Mayer RJ, Fuchs CS, Innocenti F, Nixon AB, Goldberg R, O'…
• Optimizing pancreatic cancer management with next generation imaging and liquid biopsy (CHANGE-PDAC).
  Journal of Clinical Oncology 2022 Erica S Tsang, Eric Andrew Collisson, Zhen J. Wang, Sorbarikor Piawah, Taylor Sanchez, Margaret A. Tempero, Andrew H. Ko
• Feasibility and Acceptability of a Physical Activity Tracker and Text Messages to Promote Physical Activity During Chemotherapy for Colorectal Cancer: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial (Smart Pace II).
  JMIR cancer 2022 Van Blarigan EL, Dhruva A, Atreya CE, Kenfield SA, Chan JM, Milloy A, Kim I, Steiding P, Laffan A, Zhang L, Piawah S, Fukuoka Y, Miaskowski C, Hecht FM, Kim MO, Venook AP, Van Loon K
• Resident-Reported Impact of a Novel Oncology Curriculum for Internal Medicine Residents.
  Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education 2021 Tsai FD, Guercio B, Stuver S, Stern R, Peluso MJ, Winkler M, Piawah S, Vallurupalli M, Luskin MR, Braun D, Parent A, Glotzbecker B, Kilbridge KL
• Investigating tumor molecular profiling as a possible contributor to racial/ethnic disparities in pancreatic cancer.
  Journal of Clinical Oncology 2021 Evan Justin Walker, Sorbarikor Piawah, Ann Griffin, Julia C. Carnevale, Pelin Cinar, Eric Andrew Collisson, Margaret A. Tempero, Andrew H. Ko
• Primary osteosarcoma of the parietal bone.
  Skeletal radiology 2021 Ramezanpour S, Horvai AE, Piawah S, Link TM
• Guidelines for Evaluating the Feasibility of Recruitment in Pilot Studies of Diverse Populations: An Overlooked but Important Component.
  Ethnicity & disease 2020 Stewart AL, Nápoles AM, Piawah S, Santoyo-Olsson J, Teresi JA
• Cancer health disparities in racial/ethnic minorities in the United States.
  British journal of cancer 2020 Zavala VA, Bracci PM, Carethers JM, Carvajal-Carmona L, Coggins NB, Cruz-Correa MR, Davis M, de Smith AJ, Dutil J, Figueiredo JC, Fox R, Graves KD, Gomez SL, Llera A, Neuhausen SL, Newman L, Nguyen T,…
• Rural and urban disparities based on zip code of residence: Analyses of 834 and 2,159 patients in NCCTG N9741 and CALGB 80405 (Alliance) trials respectively.
  Journal of Clinical Oncology 2020 Midhun Malla, Lucas J. Huebner, Sorbarikor Piawah, Heinz-Josef Lenz, Charles David Blanke, Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, Eileen Mary O'Reilly, Qian Shi, Alan P. Venook, Richard M. Goldberg
• Targeted therapy for colorectal cancer metastases: A review of current methods of molecularly targeted therapy and the use of tumor biomarkers in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer.
  Cancer 2019 Piawah S, Venook AP
• A case report of vanishing bile duct syndrome after exposure to pexidartinib (PLX3397) and paclitaxel.
  NPJ breast cancer 2019 Piawah S, Hyland C, Umetsu SE, Esserman LJ, Rugo HS, Chien AJ
• What is the Role of the Arts in Medical Education and Patient Care? A Survey-based Qualitative Study.
  The Journal of medical humanities 2018 Pories SE, Piawah S, Abel GA, Mullangi S, Doyle J, Katz JT
• Tu1699 Obesity Increases the Risk of Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Men.
  Gastroenterology 2017 Lisa L. Strate, Amit D. Joshi, Prashant Singh, Sorbarikor Piawah, Matthew R. Boylan, Andrew T. Chan
• A Prospective Study of Alcohol Consumption and Smoking and the Risk of Major Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Men.
  PloS one 2016 Strate LL, Singh P, Boylan MR, Piawah S, Cao Y, Chan AT
• 783 Menopausal Hormone Therapy Is Associated With Increased Risk of Lower Gastrointestinal Bleeding.
  Gastroenterology 2015 Matthew R. Boylan, Prashant Singh, Hamed Khalili, Sorbarikor Piawah, Kathleen O. Stewart, Lisa L. Strate, Andrew T. Chan
• 786 Alcohol Consumption Increases the Risk of Gastrointestinal Bleeding in Men.
  Gastroenterology 2015 Prashant Singh, Elaine Coughlan-Gifford, Matthew R. Boylan, Sorbarikor Piawah, Kathleen O. Stewart, Lisa L. Strate, Andrew T. Chan
• Patient navigation to improve follow-up of abnormal mammograms among disadvantaged women.
  Journal of women's health (2002) 2014 Percac-Lima S, Ashburner JM, McCarthy AM, Piawah S, Atlas SJ
• CASK deletion in intestinal epithelia causes mislocalization of LIN7C and the DLG1/Scrib polarity complex without affecting cell polarity.
  Molecular biology of the cell 2009 Lozovatsky L, Abayasekara N, Piawah S, Walther Z