Janielle Maynard, PhD

Dr. Janielle P. Maynard is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research interests involve the investigation of immunobiological factors that contribute to cancer health disparities in racial/ethnic minorities and underserved populations. Her lab uses molecular pathology techniques to characterize the inflammatory landscape of prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer tissues from patients with varied genetic ancestry.

Her research also involves the investigation of inflammation-associated P2 purinergic receptors and their role in cancer initiation and aggressiveness. Her work has determined that P2X3 purinergic receptor overexpression is associated with lower recurrence-free survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and characterized a novel P2X3 receptor function in liver cells, that is, as a key mediator of baseline and nucleotide-mediated proliferation. Similarly, her work identified P2X4 purinergic receptors as overexpressed in prostate cancer and associated with an increased risk of metastasis. Finally, her work seeks to identify P2 purinergic receptors in pancreatic cancer that have clinical significance and potential for therapeutic targeting.

Dr. Maynard graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Chemistry from Howard University and earned a Ph.D. in Translational Biology and Molecular Medicine from Baylor College of Medicine. She joined the Department of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2016 where she served as Chief Postdoctoral Fellow at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2018. She also won numerous awards including the JHU Postdoctoral Association Conference Award, a JHU Pathology Young Investigator’s Day Translational Research Award, an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Scholar in Training Award, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Inaugural Postdoctoral Excellence in Mentoring Award. She joined the faculty in the Pathology Department in 2021 and is a National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) 2021 Health Disparities Research Institute Scholar.

Dr. Maynard has a strong commitment to increasing diversity in the biomedical sciences and fostering equity and inclusion within the academic research community.