About

Professor Katherine King received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University in 1978, following her completion of an M.A. in Greek from Columbia University. She holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Classics and Comparative Literature at UCLA. Her seminars focus on Epic, Greek tragedy, and the Classical tradition, utilizing feminist theory and cultural criticism. Her main interest lies in understanding why and how writers manipulate myth and significant cultural texts for ideological purposes. Her scholarly contributions include the publication of 'Achilles: Paradigms of the War Hero from Homer to the Middle Ages' in 1987 and the editing of 'Homer' in 1994, a collection of essays examining the influence of Homer from the Middle Ages to the 1990s. She has also published essays on the classical tradition, analyzing diverse twentieth-century authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Marguerite Yourcenar. Currently, she is working on 'Imaginary Women,' a cross-cultural analysis of archetypal women in classical Greek and modern American cultures, and on an introduction to Greek and Latin epic. Professor King has served on the editorial board of Viator, a journal of Medieval and Renaissance literature. She has been involved in professional service, including membership in the Committee on the Status of Women and Minorities in the American Philological Association and chairing the UCLA Committee on Diversity and Equal Opportunity. In recognition of her teaching, she received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1993.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Radiology
• Pathology
• Medical physics
• Oncology

Selected publications

• Toward noninvasive genomic profiling in muscle-invasive bladder cancer using quantitative CT texture analysis.

  Journal of Clinical Oncology · 2026-03-01

  article

  825 Background: Urothelial bladder cancer exhibits substantial pathological, molecular, and clinical heterogeneity. Genomic and transcriptomic profiling of muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) has identified recurrent alterations that inform classification and therapeutic targets. However, evolving mutational landscapes and the infrastructure required for testing limit routine clinical applicability. Computed tomography (CT), used routinely for staging and surveillance, may offer a noninvasive method to infer tumor biology. Radiomics - the extraction of quantitative imaging features - may help link phenotypic imaging signatures to underlying molecular alterations. Methods: We integrated genomics data from The Cancer Genome Atlas with CT data from The Cancer Imaging Archive in 89 patients with biopsy-proven MIBC to create models for prediction of DNA mutations, Tumor Mutational Burden (TMB), and mRNA expression. An in-house developed CT-based radiomics pipeline was used to compute 488 texture metrics for the segmented images and quantify visual characteristics such as brightness distribution, pixel relationships, and periodic structural patterns. Three machine learning classifiers - Random Forest, Extreme Gradient Boosting, and Elastic Net - were trained on the radiomics data and evaluated with 10-fold cross-validation using area under the receiver-operator curve (AUC) as a balanced performance measure. Results: Among 15 DNA mutations found in at least 10% of the cohort, EP300, FGFR3, and ARID1A were predicted most reliably, with AUCs of 0.77 and 0.76, and 0.75 respectively. The models also predicted tumors with high TMB (AUC = 0.61), transcriptomic patterns associated with poor prognosis by two mRNA panels (AUC = 0.73, AUC = 0.65), and transcriptional levels of key cell cycle (CDKN1A, AUC = 0.78) and apoptotic (CASP3, AUC = 0.71) genes. Finally, the model could frequently discriminate the luminal infiltrated molecular subtype from other variants (AUC = 0.69). Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that CT-derived radiomics features can capture biologically and clinically relevant information in muscle-invasive bladder cancer. These findings support the potential utility of radiomics as a noninvasive, scalable adjunct to genomic profiling in MIBC.

  PublisherDOI

• Hepatobiliary phase abbreviated MRI for secondary surveillance after microwave ablation of HCC

  CVIR Oncology · 2025-06-23

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Purpose To compare the diagnostic performance of an abbreviated MRI (AMRI) protocol consisting of hepatobiliary phase (HBP) and T2-weighted sequences versus complete-protocol MRI, for secondary surveillance in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after microwave ablation (MWA). Methods This retrospective cohort study included 43 HCC patients who underwent MWA between 2017 and 2019, comprising 27 consecutive patients with recurrence and 16 randomly selected patients without recurrence (to increase the proportion of negative MRI exams presented to readers), resulting in a total of 215 complete-protocol gadoxetic acid-enhanced surveillance MRI exams. Three blinded radiologists independently reviewed AMRI exams, which consisted of only HBP and T2-weighted sequences for each surveillance MRI, with access to pre- and post-complete-protocol MRIs for comparison. Diagnostic performance of AMRI was compared with the results from complete MRI protocol. Results Inter-reader agreement was excellent ( κ = 0.91). Overall diagnostic performance per-patient and per-AMRI was as follows: sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), and negative predictive value (NPV) of 86.4% (95%CI: 77.3–92.2), 100% (95.5–100), and 88.1% (79.8–93.2) for per-patient, and 87.5% (81.1–91.9), 97.6% (95–98.9) and 93.3% (89.7–95.7) for per-AMRI. Per-patient evaluation in the nonlocal-R subcohort showed SEN, SPE, and NPV of 86.6% (75.8–93.1), 100% (84.5–100), and 72.4% (54.3–85.3), compared with 85.7% (65.3–95), 100% (93.9–100) and 95.2% (86.9–98.7) for local-R subcohort, respectively. Conclusion An AMRI protocol consisting of HBP and T2-weighted sequences has high SEN and NPV for detecting recurrent HCC and may be an acceptable secondary surveillance method for HCC patients following MWA, which may lead to decreased scan times and associated costs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Development and Validation of a Noninvasive Model for the Detection of High-Risk Varices in Patients With Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma

  Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology · 2024-07-30 · 7 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Comparison of Abbreviated MRI with Hepatobiliary Phase Sequences versus Full Protocol MRI in Post-Microwave Ablation Surveillance of HCC

  Proceedings on CD-ROM - International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Scientific Meeting and Exhibition/Proceedings of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Scientific Meeting and Exhibition · 2024-11-26

  article

  Motivation: The study seeks to validate an abbreviated MRI protocol for HCC post-treatment surveillance. Goal(s): To determine whether an abbreviated MRI protocol is as effective as full protocol MRI for HCC surveillance post-MWA. Approach: A retrospective cohort study comparing abbreviated MRI to full protocol MRI in detecting HCC recurrence after microwave ablation. Results: The abbreviated MRI achieved an acceptable sensitivity, specificity, and negative predictive value, specificity in detecting local HCC recurrences post-MWA, indicating effective secondary surveillance potential. Impact: The study demonstrates that abbreviated MRI can effectively monitor HCC post-treatment, offering a less burdensome and cost-effective surveillance method with high accuracy, paving the way for streamlined clinical monitoring protocols.

  PublisherDOI

• Improved efficacy of pembrolizumab combined with soluble EphB4-albumin in HPV-negative EphrinB2 positive head neck squamous cell carcinoma

  Oncotarget · 2024-07-10 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  // Alexandra Jackovich 1 , 2 , Barbara J. Gitlitz 1 , 2 , Justin Wayne Wong Tiu-lim 1 , 2 , Vinay Duddalwar 1 , 2 , Kevin George King 1 , 2 , Anthony B. El-Khoueiry 1 , 2 , Jacob Stephen Thomas 1 , 2 , Denice Tsao-Wei 1 , 2 , David I. Quinn 1 , 2 , Parkash S. Gill 1 and Jorge J. Nieva 1 , 2 1 Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ 07103, USA 2 Division of Medical Oncology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA Correspondence to: Alexandra Jackovich, email: atj41@njms.rutgers.edu Jorge J. Nieva, email: jorge.nieva@med.usc.edu Keywords: EphrinB2; EphB4; HNSCC; pembrolizumab; HPV-negative Received: June 06, 2024     Accepted: June 27, 2024     Published: July 10, 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Jackovich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. ABSTRACT Objective: Patients with relapsed or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) after primary local therapy have low response rates with cetuximab, systemic chemotherapy or check point inhibitor therapy. Novel combination therapies with the potential to improve outcomes for patients with HNSCC is an area of high unmet need. Methods: This is a phase II single-arm clinical trial of locally advanced or metastatic HNSCC patients treated with a combination of soluble EphB4-human serum albumin (sEphB4-HSA) fusion protein and pembrolizumab after platinum-based chemotherapy with up to 2 prior lines of treatment. The primary endpoints were safety and tolerability and the primary efficacy endpoint was overall response rate (ORR). Secondary endpoints included progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). HPV status and EphrinB2 expression were evaluated for outcome. Results: Twenty-five patients were enrolled. Median follow up was 40.4 months (range 9.8 – 40.4). There were 6 responders (ORR 24%). There were 5 responders in the 11 HPV-negative and EphrinB2 positive patients, (ORR 45%) with 2 of these patients achieving a complete response (CR). The median PFS in HPV-negative/EphrinB2 positive patients was 3.2 months (95% CI 1.1, 7.3). Median OS in HPV-negative/EphrinB2 positive patients was 10.9 months (95% CI 2.0, 13.7). Hypertension, transaminitis and fatigue were the most common toxicities. Discussion: The combination of sEphB4-HSA and pembrolizumab has a favorable toxicity profile and favorable activity particularly among HPV-negative EphrinB2 positive patients with HNSCC.

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• Multiparametric Magnetic Resonance Imaging– Guided Dose-Escalated Radiation Therapy for Localized Prostate Cancer: A Prospective Phase 2 Trial

  Practical Radiation Oncology · 2023-11-02 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Contrast-Enhanced UltraSound (CEUS)-based characterization solid renal masses: a role for quantitative imaging approaches

  2023-03-06

  article

  In this prospective study, forty patients with solid renal masses who underwent contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) examinations were selected. Using the ImageJ software, renal masses and adjacent normal tissue were manually segmented from CEUS cine exams obtained using the built-in RS85 Samsung scanner software. For the radiomics analysis, one frame representing precontrast, early, peak, and delay enhancement phase were selected post segmentation from each CEUS clip. From each region of interest (ROI) within a tumor tissue normalized renal mass, 112 radiomic metrics were extracted using custom Matlab® code. For the time-intensity curve (TIC) analysis, the segmented ROIs were plotted as a function of time, and the data were fit to a washout curve. From these time-signal intensity curves, perfusion quantitative parameters, were generated. Wilcoxon rank sum test or univariate independent t-test depending on data normality were used for descriptive analyses. Agreement was analyzed using Kappa statistic. Of the 40 solid masses, 31 (77.5%) were malignant, 9 (22.5%) were benign based on histopathology. Excellent agreement was found between histopathological confirmation and visual assessment based on CEUS in discriminating solid renal masses into benign vs. malignant categories (κ=0.89 95% confidence interval (CI): (0.77,1)). The total agreement between the two was 92.5%. The sensitivity and specificity of CEUS-based visual assessment was found to be 100% and 66.7%, respectively. Quantitative analysis revealed TIC metrics revealed statistically significant differences between the malignant and benign groups and between clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) and papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC) subtypes. The study shows excellent agreement between visual assessment and histopathology, but with the room to improve in specificity.

  PublisherDOI

• Tissue characterization of renal masses using Nakagami-modeling of ultrasound-based texture

  2023-03-06 · 1 citations

  article

  In this Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant, prospective study, uncompressed envelope data (RF data) were collected from 100 patients with focal renal masses using an RS80A ultrasound scanner with B-mode and CEUS. By summing and averaging the Nakagami images formed using sliding windows, we use the average ‘m’ to stratify manually segmented masses, using data from both the B-mode and CEUS scans. Wilcoxon rank sum test using an alpha value of 0.05 was used detect differences between the groups. Logistic regression was used for classification and the area under the receiver operator curve (AUC) was used to assess performance. Among the 100 masses, 40 were benign, 37 were malignant based on histopathology, and 23 were radiologically and clinically presumed malignant but with no pathological proof at the time of data analysis. Univariate analyses showed significant (p<0.01) differences between the benign and non-benign masses on both B-mode and CEUS, with non-benign masses having smaller ‘m’. Predictive models constructed using Nakagami parameters extracted from Bmode and CEUS-based RF scans showed an AUC of 0.67 95% CI: (0.56, 0.78) and 0.61 95% CI: (0.5, 0.73), respectively for discriminating benign from non-benign renal masses. The concordance between the two assessments was 95%. We present a framework for characterizing images using speckle textural properties, for example Nakagami analysis, to aid in objective tissue characterization using ultrasound.

  PublisherDOI

• Contrast-enhanced ultrasound for hepatocellular carcinoma detection and diagnosis in the context of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

  Hepatoma Research · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is increasing worldwide and is projected to become a major etiology of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). HCC occurs more commonly in NAFLD patients who develop cirrhosis, though HCC is known to occur in the setting of noncirrhotic NAFLD as well. This is of particular importance given that the American College of Radiology (ACR) CT/MRI Liver Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) algorithm may only be applied to a certain population of patients, and this population does not include those with noncirrhotic NAFLD. Conventional ultrasound (US) has long been in use for HCC surveillance, but contrast-enhanced US (CEUS) is a relatively newer modality, growing in use for assessment of liver lesions, and its use in HCC diagnosis has been formalized with CEUS LI-RADS. The use of US and CEUS in the assessment of liver lesions in NAFLD patients involves the consideration of certain particular nuances, and familiarity with these considerations will continue increasing in importance as the disease becomes more common.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Correction: Perinephric myxoid pseudotumor of fat: a multimodality imaging case series

  Abdominal Radiology · 2023-02-17 · 1 citations

  erratumOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Vinay Duddalwar

  University of Southern California

  27 shared

• Alexandra Jackovich

  University of Southern California

  10 shared

• Jorge J. Nieva

  10 shared

• Anthony B. El-Khoueiry

  USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center

  10 shared

• David I. Quinn

  10 shared

• Barbara J. Gitlitz

  10 shared

• Jacob Stephen Thomas

  University of Southern California

  10 shared

• Justin Wayne Wong Tiu-lim

  Torrance Memorial Medical Center

  10 shared

Awards & honors

• Distinguished Teaching Award (1993)