Cancer Research Faculty
Faculty Departments
- Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
- College of Dentistry
- College of Nursing
- College of Pharmacy
- College of Public Health
- Eppley Institute
- Genetics Cell Biology and Anatomy
- Internal Medicine
- Munroe-Meyer Institute
- Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences
- Pathology and Microbiology
- Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience
- Radiation Oncology
- Radiology
- Surgery
Faculty
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Maher Abdalla, PhD Research focus: Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), Heme Oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and immune cells in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and prostate cancer. |
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Yazen Alnouti, PhD Research focus: Drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK), with a focus on the application of Bioanalytical Chemistry, in vitro and in vivo animal models to support ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity) and pharmacokinetic (PK) studies; Biomarkers for hepato-biliary diseases based on bile acid metabolism by sulfation. |
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Hamid Band, MD, PhD Research focus: Regulation of receptor signaling by endocytic traffic; Cbl-family and CHIP ubiquitin ligases; EHD-family endocytic recycling regulators; mouse genetic models; cancer and stem cell biology. |
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Vimla Band, PhD Research focus: Delineate molecular mechanisms of early steps in transformation of mammary epithelial cells with the goal of identifying novel molecular diagnostic/prognostic markers and potential therapy targets of breast cancers. |
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Janina Baranowska-Kortylewicz, PhD Research focus: Radioimmunotherapy-related clinical studies in Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; molecular radiotherapy of peripheral T-cell lmphoma not otherwise specified using DNA-targeted agents. |
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Surinder K. Batra, PhD Research focus: Structure/function analysis of tumor-associated genes; cancer diagnostics, cancer vaccines; monoclonal antibodies, genetic engineering of antibodies. |
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Raymond Bergan, MD Research focus: Understanding how cancer cells regulate transformation to a high motility metastatic phenotype, and how that process can be therapeutically modulated. |
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Ann Berger, PhD, APRN-CNS, AOCNS, FAAN Research focus: Symptom management, in particular fatigue and sleep/wake disturbances, in individuals with cancer; use of wrist actigraphy. |
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Tadayoshi Bessho, PhD Research focus: Molecular mechanism of DNA interstrand crosslink repair in mammalian cells. |
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Kishor K. Bhakat, PhD Research focus: Mitotic gene bookmarking: A novel dimension of epigenetic memory in cancer for post-mitotic transcriptional reactivation; APE1 and its acetylation: A potential prognostic and predictive biomarker in cancer. |
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Chengfeng (Andy) Bi, PhD Research focus: Pathogenesis and molecular mechanism of hematological malignancies. |
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Piero Bianco, PhD Research focus: Stalled DNA replication fork rescue to maintain genome stability |
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Adrian Black, PhD Research focus: Tissue sciences; molecular biology; cell cycle; transcription; protein kinase C signaling in intestinal cells; endometrial cancer. |
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Jennifer Black, PhD Research focus: Colon cancer; endometrial cancer; pancreatic cancer; cell signaling (kinases and phosphatases) cell cycle regulation; control of protein translation in cancer; protein kinase C; PP2A. |
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Gloria Borgstahl, PhD Research focus: Structural biology, structure-based drug design, superoxide dismutase and double-strand DNA repair by homologous recombination. |
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Siddappa Byrareddy, PhD Research focus: Understanding host-virus dynamics using molecular biology, virology, immunology, systems biology, and genomic tools to develop prevention strategies for HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, such as Zika virus. |
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W. Scott Campbell, MBA, PhD Research focus: Health informatics and pathology informatics. |
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Mark Carlson, MD, FACS Research focus: Cancer; regenerative medicine; hemostasis; wound healing. |
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Kishore Challagundla, PhD Research focus: Role of extra cellular vesicles (EV's) and the non-coding RNAs in affecting immunotherapy and escaping immune surveillance in pediatric cancers, in particular neuroblastoma and acute myeloid leukemia. |
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Pi-Wan Cheng, PhD Research focus: Development of glycan-based strategies to treat malignant cancer as well as prevent and treat infections. |
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Suyong Choi, PhD Research focus: Phosphoinositide signaling pathways in cancer and immunology.
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Dahn Clemens, PhD Research focus: Role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease; molecular mechanisms by which reactive oxygen species cause inflammation that leads to the initiation and profession of cardiovascular disease. |
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Samuel M. Cohen, MD, PhD Research focus: Urologic pathology, carcinogenesis and toxicology. |
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Martin Conda-Sheridan, PhD Research focus: Design of complex multifunctional biomaterials and bioactive small molecules for medicinal applications. |
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Leah Cook, PhD Research focus: Investigation of immune interactions within the tumor bone microenvironment that contribute to bone metastatic prostate cancer; identifying novel immunotherapeutic targets for treating and curing metastatic cancer. |
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Kenneth Cowan, MD, PhD Research focus: Tumor suppressor genes, breast cancer; mechanisms associated with development of multi-drug resistance and the regulation of expression of drug resistance genes in human tumor cells. |
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Christine Cutucache, PhD Research focus: Cognitive sciences with human learning; bioinformatics and computationally-based research on immunological aspects of B-cell lymphomas.. |
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Kaustubh Datta, PhD Research focus: Molecular mechanisms of cancer progression and metastasis. |
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John S. Davis, PhD Research focus: Women's health; Reproductive endocrinology and cancer; Mechanisms of hormone action. |
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Rebecca Oberley-Deegan, PhD Research focus: Role of free radicals signaling to transform fibroblasts and inflammatory cells in normal tissue, which results in damage to these tissues; understanding the mechanisms by which ROS promote radiation induced fibrosis and prostate cancer progression. |
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Punita Dhawan, PhD Research focus: Development of novel therapeutic targets for Gastrointestinal Cancer progression and chemoresistance; Role of signaling pathways and cancer stem cells involved in this process using cell culture, mouse and organoid models. |
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Jixin Dong, PhD Research focus: Hippo signaling and cancer; Chemotherapeutic drug resistance. |
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Bin Duan, PhD Research focus: Integrate novel biomaterials, advanced biofabrication of tissue engineering to create multi-scale complexity within engineered tissue to understand the fundamentals of cell-material interactions and mimic the native tissue for tissue regeneration. |
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Dalia Elgamal, PhD Research focus: Pathogenesis of B-cell malignancies and evaluating novel targeted therapies for B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia and Richter's transformation. |
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James Eudy, PhD Research focus: Next Generation DNA Sequencing strategies for rare Mendelian disease gene identification and functional genomic technologies; biomedical interest in cancer, cardiovascular disease and virology. |
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Kurt Fisher, MD, PhD Research focus: Basic and transitional research with the goal of identifying and evaluating novel targets for therapy in gastrointestinal tumors with K-Ras mutations; GI tract, liver, and solid organ transplant pathology. |
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Jered Garrison, PhD Research focus: Targeted molecular imaging and radiotherapeutic agent design; development of cancer-specific prodrugs; polymer based drug delivery systems. |
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Gargi Ghosal, PhD Research focus: Understand the basic science underlying replication stress response in cancer and aging; identify new targets and bio-markers for cancer therapy and facilitate the development of strategies to overcome drug resistance and improve cancer therapies. |
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Chittibabu (Babu) Guda, PhD Research focus: Development and application of computational methods for genomic data analyses including cancer genomics, functional annotation of proteins, pathways, networks and systems in biomedical research. |
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Kyle Hewitt, PhD Research focus: Multidisciplinary approaches to identify gene regulation networks and cell signaling mechanisms that control blood production during development and/or regeneration following disease or injury. Transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms that cause hematologic disorders and mechanisms that regulate the function of hematopoietic stem and projenitor cells. |
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Steven H. Hinrichs, MD Research focus: Molecular pathogenesis and diagnostics of infectious organism, antimicrobial drug discovery and bioterrorism preparedness information technology. |
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Sarah Holstein, MD, PhD Research focus: Development of novel agents for the treatment of multiple myeloma and pancreatic cancer, with a particular focus on Rab inhibitors of the isoprenoid biosynthetic. |
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Corey Hopkins, PhD Research focus: Design, synthesis and optimization of biologically active small molecules as in vivo probes, drug discovery lead compounds and preclinical candidates. |
R. Katherine (Kate) Hyde, PhD Research focus: Understand the mechanisms that regulate leukemia development; develop treatments for hematological malignancies. |
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Javeed Iqbal, PhD Research focus: Molecular signatures to improve diagnosis and outcome prediction in Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma; gene expression profiling and pathway targeted therapy in peripheral T-cell lymphoma; characterization of key molecular signatures in natural killer cell malignancies. |
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Maneesh Jain, PhD Research focus: Development of genetically engineered antibody fragments for improved radioimmunotherapy for solid tumors; development of serum assays for the early diagnosis of lethal pancreatic cancer. |
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Keith R. Johnson, PhD Research focus: The role the cell adhesion molecules (cadherins) play in metastasis. |
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Adam R. Karpf, PhD Research focus: Ovarian cancer biology and therapeutics; Cancer epigenetics. |
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So-Youn Kim, PhD Research focus: Oncofertility, cachexia, ovarian cancer. |
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Robert Lewis, PhD Research focus: Defining intracellular mechanisms required for the epithelia-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and the formation and maintenance of cancer stem cells. |
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Ming-Fong Lin, PhD Research focus: Mechanism of cell growth regulation by steroids via cross-talk of ROS and tyrosine phosphorylation signaling. |
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Yutong Liu, PhD Research focus: Neuroimaging and image processing. |
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Matthew Lunning, DO Research focus: Rare hematologic malignancies with a focus on early drug development and experimental correlates that leads to enhanced knowledge of how to treat hematologic malignancies. |
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Xu Luo, PhD Research focus: Molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways in cell death and survival in cancer cells. |
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Quan Ly, MD, FACS Research focus: Study of the role of cadherins in metastatic cancer cell signaling and effect of cadherin mutations on cell adhesion and cell motility. Evaluate NBL1 function by re-expressing NBL1 in cancer cells. Develop novel therapies for pancreatic cancers. Study the role of survivin in pancreatic cancers. |
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Yuri Lyubchenko, PhD, DrSc Research focus: Nanoscale structure, dynamics and interactions – seeing and manipulating biomolecules. |
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Sidharth Mahapara, MD, PhD Research focus: Elucidating pathophysiologic mechanisms triggering aggressive pediatric brain tumors using transcriptomic analyses to hone in on essential signaling pathways and to test synthetic inhibitors of these pathways; Repurposing FDS-approved drugs for treatment of aggressive pediatric brain tumors. |
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Luis Marky, PhD Research focus: Biophysical chemistry and molecular forces that control the conformational stability and flexibility of nucleic acids, including Okazaki fragments, hairpin loops, intramolecular triplexes, G-quadruplexes, C-quadruplexes, and three- & four-arm DNA junctions and their interaction with drugs. |
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Grinu Mathew, PhD Research focus: Genetic and epigentic regulation of prostate cancer metastasis. |
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Benita McVicker, PhD Research focus: Alcohol liver injury and mechanisms. |
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Jane Meza, PhD Research focus: Statistical issues related to small-area estimation. These methods have been extended to disease mapping applications and combining national and state data to estimate the probability of a rare event. |
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Aaron Mohs, PhD Research focus: Development of new florescent imaging contrast agents to guide surgical removal of tumors; developing new drug delivery systems that multiple myeloma; developing pathogen biosensors. |
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Justin L. Mott, PhD, MD Research focus: Receptor tyrosine kinase and microRNA regulation of apoptosis in liver cancer and bile duct injury. |
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DJ Murry, PharmD Research focus: Ways to individualize drug therapy using pharmacokinetic and pharmacogenomics information; from in vitro metabolism and transport studies, animal pharmacokinetic studies, to clinical studies evaluating drug therapy in patients. |
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Wasim (Mohd) Nasser, PhD Research focus: Novel therapeutic strategies for immunosuppressive and tumor-supportive microenvironments of metastatic breast and lung cancers. |
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Amarnath (Amar) Natarajan, PhD Research focus: Developing novel target and mechanism specific therapeutics. |
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Ali Nawshad, PhD Research focus: Transforming Growth Factor (TGF) ß signaling during palate development; mechanisms of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) by TGFß in HNSCC; role of TGFß signaling during dentinogenesis. |
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Gregory Oakley, PhD Research focus: DNA damage and repair involving signal transduction pathways that regulate the cellular response to DNA damage and how alterations in these pathways contribute to mutagenesis and, ultimately, carcinogenesis. |
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Michael M. Ouellette, PhD Research focus: Molecular mechanisms that determine the lifespan of human cells, including telomeres and telomerase. Role of the small GTPases K-Ras and Rac1 in the development of pancreatic cancer and its response to conventional therapies. |
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David Oupicky, PhD Research focus: Design on multifunctional nanoparticles and polymers withe applications in the treatment of metastiatic cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, and acute kidney injury. |
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Youri Pavlov, PhD Research focus: Cellular systems of mutagenesis and antimutagenesis. |
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Aimin Peng, PhD Research focus: Cell cycle regulation and the DNA damage response (DDR); cellular recover process from DNA damage; protein phosphatase-dependent cell cycle and DDR regulation and its implication for cancer progression and therapy. |
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Thomas Petro, PhD Research focus: Using molecular immunobiology approaches to explore intrinsic pathways to or novel therapeutics for expression and control of cytokines to prevent chronic viral infections, autoimmune disease and/or inflammatory diseases. |
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Armen Petrosyan, MD, PhD Research focus: Mechanism of Golgi alteration in advanced prostate cancer: focus on aberrant glycosylation; role for non-muscle Myosin IIA in alcohol-induced Golgi fragmentation. |
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Larisa Poluektova, MD, PhD Research focus: Pathogenesis and treatment of HIV-1 associated dementia; translational mouse models for human-specific diseases. |
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Moorthy Ponnusamy, PhD Research focus: Cancer stem cells; metastasis; progression of pancreatic cancer. |
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Satyayanarayana Rachagani, PhD Research focus: Pathogenesis and targeting strategies for pancreatic and colorectal cancer through miRNA, natural agents, and other novel combination therapies. |
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Prakash Radhakrishnan, PhD Research focus: Glycobiology of pancreatic cancer; autocrine and paracrine cell signaling mechanisms; developing therapeutics for pancreatic cancer. |
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Angie A. Rizzino, PhD Research focus: Molecular mechanisms that regulate the proliferation of cancer stem cells and pluripotent stem cells. |
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Kerry Rodabaugh, MD Research focus: Gynecologic oncology. |
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Micah Schott, PhD Research focus: Cell biology of lipids in metabolic disease. |
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Polina Shcherbakova, PhD Research focus: Mechanisms controlling genome stability in eukaryotic cells, particularly the functions of DNA polymerases, DNA replication fidelity and the relationship between DNA polymerase defects and cancer. |
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Jawed Siddiqui, PhD Research focus: Bone metastasis, bone microenvironment, chemokines and cytokines, osteoimmunology, bone-muscle cross-talk, and cancer therapeutics. |
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Amar Singh, PhD Research focus: Molecular mechanisms of inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer; renal pathobiology. |
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Rakesh K. Singh, PhD Research focus: Tumor growth and metastasis, angiogenesis, tumor immunology, cytrokine biology. |
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Joyce Solheim, PhD Research focus: Mechanisms regulating the immune response to tumors and infectious pathogens, and development of new immunotherapies. |
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Paul Sorgen, PhD Research focus: Advancing our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of gap junction regulation in the heart, with particular interest and expertise in protein-protein interactions mediated by the carboxyl terminal domain of connexins. |
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Tahir Tahirov, PhD Research focus: Reveal the structure basis of the mechanisms covering the key stages in the expression and duplication/repair of genes and to learn how the disease-related mutations in proteins disrupt these key processes. |
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Melissa Teoh-Fitzgerald, PhD Research focus: Role of oxidative tumor microenvironment in regulating the reciprocal tumor-stroma interactions. |
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Paul Trippier, PhD Research focus: Small molecule drug discovery for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. |
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Joseph Vetro, PhD Research focus: Developing novel synthetic targeted drug and gene delivery nanocarriers for the anti-angiogenesis treatment of cancer; improving development paradigms for targeted bioimaging and drug delivery nanocarriers; developing subunit vaccines based on the novel adjuvant, EP67. |
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Saraswathi Viswanathan, PhD Research focus: Determine the role of obesity in modulating the pathogenesis of insulin resistance, alcohol-associated liver injury, and pancreatic cancer. |
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James Wahl, PhD Research focus: Understand the role of desmosomes play in maintaining the normal phenotype of squamous epithelial tissues and to determine if their alteration during tumorigenesis influences cell motility, metastasis and signaling. |
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Guangshun (Gus) Wang, PhD Research focus: Host defense antibicrobial peptides; structural bioinformatics; biomolecular NMR. |
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Nicholas Woods, PhD Research focus: Systems biology based analysis of cancer signaling pathways. |
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Ashley Wysong, MD, MS Research focus: Skin cancer treatment and epidemiology. |
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Jingwei Xie, PhD Research focus: Synthesis, surface modification, self-assembly of materials at nanometer scale to address problems in the field of tissue engineering, regenerative medicine and drug/gene delivery. |
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Ying Yan, PhD Research focus: Rac1 GTPase in chemo/radiation response of breast cancer; Protein Phosphatase 2A in oncogenesis and cancer progression. |
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Chi (Kevin) Zhang, MD, PhD Research focus: Development of novel strategies for delivery of therapies to brain tumors. |