Graduate Research Faculty

Cory Abate-Shen, PhD

Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of cancer development, Genitourinary cancer development

Swarnali Acharyya, PhD

Research Interests: Exploring mechanisms of drug resistance and cancer metastasis, with primary focus on metastatic breast cancer and lung cancer

Osama Al Dalahmah, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Understanding glial pathology in central nervous system (CNS) diseases

Dritan Agalliu, PhD

Research Interests: Dynamic Imaging of the CNS Vasculature, CNS and Retina Vascular Biology , Blood-Brain Barrier Biology, Neuroimmunology, Models of Psychiatric Disorders

Research Interests: Genetic studies of Mendelian and complex eye diseases (Stargardt macular dystrophy and more); Microarray-based, next generation sequencing-based diagnostic applications for eye diseases; Gene- and small molecule therapy for retinal disorders

Ottavio Arancio, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Synapses and Circuits, Biophysics/Ion Channels, Neural Degeneration and Repair, Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Neurobiology of Disease

Richard Baer, PhD

Research Interests: The pathogenesis of hereditary breast cancer

Jonathan Barasch, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Discovering the mechanisms that produce the epithelial phenotype during the conversion of mesenchymal cells

Francesca Bartolini, PhD

Research Interests: Molecular and cellular biology of neurodegeneration; the regulation and functioin of the microtubule cytoskeleton at synapse

Julie Canman, PhD

Research Interests: Molecular regulation of cell division and mechanisms of diversity during cytokinesis

Peter Canoll, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Mechanisms of glioma growth and invasion

Eunhee Choi, PhD

Research Interests: The mutual regulation between cell division and metabolism, and its impact on physiology

Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD

Research Interests: Molecular genetics of cancer; molecular pathogenesis of lymphoma and leukemia; genetic control in lymphoid tissue development

Patricia Ducy, PhD

Research interest: Endocrine crosstalks between the skeleton, the brain and the pancreas

Qing Fan, PhD

Research Interests: Structural biology, Cell surface receptor - ligand recognition

Kevin Gardner, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Epigenetic regulation in breast cancer

Lloyd Greene, PhD

Research Interests: Cell Specification and Differentiation; Neural Degeneration and Repair; Synapses and Circuits; Treatment of Brain Tumors

Wei Gu, PhD

Research Interests: P53 in tumor suppression and aging

Gregg Gundersen, PhD

Research Interests: The regulation and function of the microtubule cytoskeleton

Rebecca Haeusler, PhD

Research Interests: Understand the development of pro-atherogenic metabolic abnormalities in the natural history of diabetes and the metabolic syndrome

Gunnar Hargus, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Pluripotent stem cells and their application in developmental biology and in modeling of neurodegenerative diseases with a special focus on frontotemporal dementia (FTD)

Ulrich Hengst, PhD

Research Interests: Cellular/Molecular/Developmental Neuroscience; Neural Degeneration and Repair; Axon Pathfinding and Synaptogenesis

Eldad Hod, MD

Research Interests: Using in vitro systems, mouse models, and human studies to investigate important problems relating to red blood cell transfusion and iron biology, particularly related to refrigerated storage, iron deficiency, hemolytic transfusion reactions, red blood cell senescence, and phagocytosis

K rystalyn Hudson, PhD

Research Interests: Immune response to red blood cells

Syed Abid Hussaini, PhD

Research Interests: Aging and Dementia; Alzheimer's disease; Cognitive disorders; Sleep-related memory loss; Spatial memory

Minah Kim, PhD

Research Interests: Cancer Biology; Vascular Biology; Immunotherapy

Tae-Wan Kim, PhD

Research Interests: Neurogenetics; Neural Degeneration and Repair; Alzheimer’s disease

Ronald Liem, PhD

Research Interests: Neural Degeneration and Repair, Cellular/Molecular/Developmental Neuroscience

Ian Lipkin, MD

Research Interests: Chronic disease; Immunopathogenesis and infectious diseases; Infectious diseases

Carol Mason, PhD

Research Interests: Synapses and Circuits; Axon Pathfinding and Synaptogenesis; Cell Specification and Differentiation; Cellular/Molecular/Developmental Neuroscience

Cathy Mendelsohn, PhD

Research Interests: Molecular pathways controlling development of urogenital tract

George Mentis, PhD

Research Interests: Neural Degeneration and Repair; Sensory Physiology; Synapses and Circuits; Motor Systems

Jaewon Min, PhD

Research Interests: Deciphering the cellular and molecular phenomena that occur in cancer to facilitate the development of new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer

Umrao Monani, PhD

Research Interests: Pediatric Neurology; Neurobiology of Disease; Motor Neuron Disease; Synapses and Circuits

Natura Myeku, PhD

Research Interests: Alzheimer’s and other Dementia Diseases; Translational Neuroscience; Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience; Synaptic Biology

David Owens, PhD

Research Interests: The contributions of stem cells and differentiated cells to epidermal cancer

Teresa Palomero Vazquez, PhD

Research Interests: The genetics and mechanisms of transformation in Peripheral T-cell Lymphoma (PTCL), a heterogenous group of mature T-cell malignancies

Laura Pasqualucci, MD

Research Interests: Elucidating the genetic basis of mature B cell malignancies, with emphasis on the two most common subtypes, diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and follicular lymphoma (FL)

Livio Pellizzoni, PhD

Research Interests: Cellular/Molecular/Developmental Neuroscience; Neurodegeneration and repair; RNA-binding proteins and non-coding RNA regulatory networks in neurological disorders; Synapses and Circuits

Yueqing Peng, PhD

Research Interests: Epilepsy/Psychiatric Disorders; Learning and Memory; Neurobiology of Sleep; Systems and Circutis

Liza Pon, PhD

Research Interests: Cytosketetal control of organelle movements and segregation during cell division

Serge Przedborski, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Neurodegeneration, Neurobiology of Disease, Molecular and Cellular Biology of Neurodegeneration , Parkinson's Disease, Motor Neuron Biology and Diseases, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Mitochondria Biology and Disease, Mitophagy, Neuroinflammation, Microglia, Astrocytes, Apoptosis, Necroptosis, Bioinfomatics, High-throughput Screening, Stem Cell Biology, Neural Degeneration and Repair, Motor Systems

Markus Siegelin, MD

Research Interests: Establishing Mechanisms of Drug Resistance in Brain Tumors; Identification of Novel Drug Combination Therapies for Brain Tumors; Targeting Cell Death Mechanisms in Brain Tumors; Targeting Tumor Cell Metabolism and The Epigenome for Brain Tumor Therapy

Janet Sparrow, PhD

Research Interests: Understanding the composition of RPE bisretinoid lipofuscin and conditions modulating its formation; Investigating links between RPE lipofuscin and drusen formation in age-related macular degeneration; Development of therapies to limit RPE lipofuscin formation; Interpretation of patterns of fundus autofluorescence in retinal disorders; Quantitation of fundus autofluorescence intensities

Steven Spitalnik, MD

Research Interests: The biology of red blood cells

Andrew Sproul, PhD

Research Interests: Modeling the complexities of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by using CRISPR-mediated genome-editing to introduce specific causal and risk mutations into human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), thus allowing more robust cross comparisons between genotypes and the creation of allelic libraries in similar genetic backgrounds

Brent Stockwell

Research Interests: My laboratory studies ferroptosis, a form of cell death my lab discovered in 2012, as well as other molecular processes related to metabolism, cancer biology, and neurodegeneration.

Ira Tabas, PhD

Research Interests: Cellular and molecular processes related to arterial wall biology and atherogenesis

Alison Taylor, PhD

Research Interests: Understanding the role of aneuploidy in tumor development

Andrew Teich, MD

Research Interests: Our laboratory uses human brain tissue specimens and human cell-derived model systems to study the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and identify viable therapeutic targets

Carol Troy, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Intellectual Disabilities; Neural Degeneration and Repair; Neurobiology of Disease; Regulation of the neurovascular unit

Stephen Tsang, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Neural Degeneration and Repair; Stem Cell Biology; Sensory Physiology; Genome Surgery; Gene Therapy

Clarissa Waites, PhD

Research Interests: Understand nervous system function and dysfunction at the cellular and molecular level, focusing on pathways that regulate protein trafficking, degradation, and secretion

Harris Wang, PhD

Research Interests: Principles that drive the formation, maintenance, and evolution of genomes within and across microbial populations

Stuart Weisberg, MD, PhD

Research Interests: How anatomy and organ microenvironment specify immune cell phenotype and function in health and disease

Hynek Wichterle, PhD

Research Interests: Neural Degeneration and Repair; Cell Specification and Differentiation; Stem Cell Biology; Cellular/Molecular/Developmental Neuroscience

Robert Winchester, MD

Research Interests: Autoimmunity and autoimmune disease

Howard Worman, MD

Research Interests: How mutations in genes encoding proteins of inner nuclear membrane cause inherited diseases; Liver diseases, including fatty liver disease and autoimmune liver diseases

Ai Yamamoto, PhD

Research Interests: Roles of macroautophagy in the healthy and diseased CNS; Neural Degeneration and Repair; Disease; Protein trafficking

Darrell Yamashiro, MD, PhD

Research Interests: Tumor genetics and the design of innovative therapies

Hee Won Yang, PhD

Research Interests: Cancer biology; Systems biology; Cell biology; Synthetic biology

Andrew Yates, PhD

Research Interests: Integrating theoretical and computational tools with more traditional experimental approaches to study multiple aspects of lymphocyte dynamics

Lori Zeltser, PhD

Research Interests: Cellular/Molecular/Developmental Neuroscience; Sympathetic Innervation of Brown Adipose Tissue; Maternal Programming of Metabolic Disease; Models of Psychiatric Disorders (Anorexia); Circuits Regulating Food Intake and Body Weight

Shan Zha, MD, PhD

Research Interests: The molecular mechanisms of DNA damage response and their roles in lymphocyte gene-rearrangement

Xin Zhang, PhD

Research Interests: Mechanism of FGF signaling in eye development; Molecular regulatioin of cell shape; Adhesion and migration; Glial development and pathology; Neural degeneration and repair

Graduate Research Faculty

Affiliated Faculty