Dr. Bazzaro maintains a longstanding and productive international collaboration with Dr. Pádraig D'Arcy, Lecturer in the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at Linköping University in Sweden. Dr. D'Arcy's research focuses on ubiquitin-specific protease 14 (USP14), a proteasome-associated deubiquitinase implicated in the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration and cancer. This shared focus on proteasomal deubiquitinase inhibition as a cancer therapy has yielded several joint publications probing mechanisms of drug resistance in ovarian and other cancers, with both labs contributing to the preclinical development of novel UPS-targeting compounds.

Dr. Bazzaro works closing with Dr. D'Arcy through her joint appointment at the University of Linkoping.

Dr. Bazzaro collaborates closely with Dr. Emil Lou, Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Center and a recently named 2026 TIME100 Health honoree. Dr. Lou is recognized for his innovative approach to translational oncology, including groundbreaking first-in-human clinical trials using CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing to help the immune system target advanced gastrointestinal cancers. Together, Drs. Bazzaro and Lou combine their complementary expertise in gynecologic cancer biology, tumor heterogeneity, and intercellular communication — co-authoring studies on microtubule-associated proteins in cancer progression and AI-driven ovarian cancer risk assessment — with a shared mission of bringing bench discoveries to better patient outcomes in the clinic.

Dr. Bazzaro is proud to collaborate with Dr. Anant Madabhushi, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology and Executive Director of the Emory Empathetic AI for Health Institute. Together, we received a Department of Defense grant "FRANCIS: An AI-Driven Morphology-Based Platform for Enhanced Ovarian Cancer Prognostication and Treatment of Guidance" to leverage Dr. Madabhushi's pioneering artificial intelligence and computational pathology tools — including his AI-derived tumor-stroma analysis platform — to improve risk stratification and clinical outcomes for women with epithelial ovarian cancer. This work, which has already yielded publications including the STAR (Stroma-Tumor AI Risk) assessment study in BJC Reports (2026), exemplifies how cutting-edge machine learning can translate laboratory discovery into meaningful prognostic value for patients. 

Dr. Bazzaro collaborates with Dr. Michael Sheedlo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Minnesota. Research in the Sheedlo lab is focused on defining the mechanisms that govern interactions at the host-pathogen interface, using structural biology — including cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography — to obtain a framework that can be probed in a physiologically relevant context. Together they are interested in exploring the role of unconventional microtubule severing proteins in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases

Dr. Bazzaro works in close collaboration with Dr. Stefani Thomas, Assistant Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Masonic Cancer Center. Dr. Thomas applies discovery and targeted proteomics methods to elucidate the biology of ovarian cancer and analyze proteins derived from alterations in cancer genomes. Together, Drs. Bazzaro and Thomas have combined Dr. Bazzaro's deep expertise in ovarian cancer cell biology with Dr. Thomas's cutting-edge mass spectrometry and clinical proteomics capabilities, most recently producing a joint study on ARID1A-deficient ovarian clear cell carcinoma that identifies novel mitochondrial therapeutic targets.

Dr. Bazzaro collaborates with Dr. Shijia Zhu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Zhu's research interests focus on developing novel computational methods to enhance the power of new technologies such as spatial and single-cell multi-omics, and to screen pathogenic upstream regulators driving complex genetic diseases. In collaboration with Dr. Bazzaro and Dr. Stefani Thomas, Dr. Zhu contributes powerful bioinformatics approaches to unravel the molecular landscape of ovarian clear cell carcinoma, helping translate complex multi-omics datasets into mechanistic insights and potential therapeutic targets.