Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics || University of Pennsylvania

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Associate members of ITMAT conduct research which focuses on the translational space, defined as lying between proof of concept in cells and model systems and the completion of studies in mechanism and rational dose selection, ideally for individualized therapeutics at the end of Phase II.

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Kamilah Ali, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: kamilah@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Ali's research is focusing on the role of apoE modulation of the immune response system and its anti-proliferative properties via COX-2 pathway. This work has important implication on the progression of atherosclerosis and possible vascular remodeling and restenosis.

Sita Awasthi, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: sawasthi@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Awasthi is interested in HSV-1 vaccine strategy.

Gary Baker, MD | Status:Post-doctoral Fellow Email: bakeralso@yahoo.com
Research interest: Dr. Baker is involved in imaging in multiple modalities of both humans and animals and deals mainly with positron emission tomography and PET-CT.

Bharat Bajaj, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: bharatb@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Bajaj's research focuses on Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) biology and consequent B-cell lymphomas.

Darrick Balu | Status: PhD candidate Email: balu@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Darrick's research deals with the effects of stress and antidepressant treatments on brain neutrophins.

Soni Basra, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: basra@sas.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Basra is interested in the synthesis of improved anticancer agents previously used in phase II clinical trials against Leukemia. Additionally, Dr. Basra is interested in working on a2b1 inhibition to help reduce strokes.

Mahendra T. Bhati, MD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: mbhati@bbl.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Bhati utilizes transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) combined with quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) to study schizophrenia.

Suzanne Brown, MD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: Suzanne.Brown@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Brown is interested in myocardial metabolism. Her current project is evaluating the effects of intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR) on several aspects of myocardial physiology: insulin sensitivity, fat metabolism, mitochondrial function, and response to ischemia reperfusion. Dr. Brown and her colleagues are performing their experiments using a rat model of IUGR.

Ian Corbin, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: Ian.Corbin@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Corbin is interested in developing a versatile nanoplatform which can be used for targeted diagnostic and therapeutic applications.

Juan Chen, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: Juan.Chen@uphs.upenn.edu Website
Research interest: Dr. Chen's works focus on the development of a lipoprotein nanoplatform for the targeted delivery of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. I am also working on developing novel photodynamic therapy (PDT) agents, which are activatable by tumor-specific mRNA and enzymes.

Tathagata Choudhuri, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: tathagat@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr.Choudhur works in the field of Tumor virology. The work includes the mechanism for the targeted biomolecules to controlling the cell cycle in the latency in gamma herpes virus.

Mete Civelek, MS | Status: PhD Candidate Email: mete@seas.upenn.edu
Research interest: Mete's research involves isolating endothelial cells from various regions of the vasculature.

Michael F. Crutchlow, MD | Status: Instructor Email: mcrutchl@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Crutchlow's research focuses on both the pathogenesis and treatment of diabetes mellitus after solid organ transplantation. Dr. Crutchlow is pursuing this work in both rodent models and mechanism-oriented clinical studies.

Kristina Danielyan, PhD | Status: Post-Doctoral Fellow Email: danielya@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Danielya's field of interest and work is stroke, stroke animal models, cerebral blood flow and metabolism, cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this pathological process.

Jamaine S. C. Davis | Status: PhD candidate Email: jamaine@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Jamaine is interested characterization of an Adenosylcobalamin-dependent ribonucleotide reductase found in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Stephanie S. DeLoach, MD | Status: Post doctoral Fellow Email: Stephanie.DeLoach@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. DeLoach is interested in the effects of donor nephrectomy upon central aortic systolic blood pressure as measured by pulse wave analysis in living kidney donors. Further, she is interested in the potential humoral and genetic mechanisms for alterations in central aortic systolic pressure that may occur with donor nephrectomy.

Rose Ann DiMaria-Ghalili, PhD, RN, CNSN | Status: Postdoctoral Fellow Email: rosedim@nursing.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. DiMaria-Ghalili’s field of nursing science is geriatric nutrition and her research focuses on the biobehavioral mechanisms of post-operative weight loss in older surgical patients. In addition, she is currently conducting a funded pilot study on the use of oral liquid nutritional supplements, weight loss and health outcomes in older adults undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting surgery to examine the impact on post-operative weight loss.

Bi-Seng Ding | Status: PhD candidate Email: ding2@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Bi-Sen's work focuses on developing new therapeutic avenues for anti-thrombotic and anti-inflammatory therapy.

Andrew Edmondson | Status: MD/PhD Student Email: andrewe@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Andrew’s research focuses on the genetics of HDL cholesterol metabolism in humans. He is also interested in the genetics of complex diseases and gene therapy.

Julien Ferrari, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: julien@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Ferrari's research centers on the development of LC/MS-based analytical methods for the profiling, in biological samples, of the lipid metabolites involved in atherosclerosis.

Omidreza Firuzi, MD, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: omidreza@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Firuzi's research is focused on the role of lipoxygenase enzymes on amyloid beta production in cells and mouse models of Alzheimer's disease

Susanne Fries, MD | Status: Research Associate Email: fries@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Fries research focuses on sources of variability in the response to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that may underly their adverse effects. She is pursuing this work in clinical proof-of-concept trials.

Julie C. Friedland | Status: Postdoctoral Fellow Email: friedlaj@alumni.upenn.edu
Research interest: Julie's research focuses on the spatial and mechanical regulation of apoptosis resistance and the pathways involved in expression of the malignant phenotype. Apoptosis resistance is acquired by epithelial tissues during malignant transformation and metastasis, and plays a key role in the development of drug resistance. Understanding the mechanism by which cells in a 3D environment can evade treatment may provide insight to develop better cancer therapies.

Eliot Friedman, MD | Status: Postdoctoral Fellow Email: eliot.friedman@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Friedman's work focuses on determining the genetic determinants of susceptibility and resistance to intermittent hypoxia in both a fly model and human cells. Dr. Friedman's goal is to elucidate patient populations that are at a higher risk of suffering from the consequences of obstructive sleep apnea and develop new pharmacological targets of therapy.

Kumkum Ganguly, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: kumkum@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Ganguly's research interests are focused in the areas of vascular targeting of enzyme therapeutics for containment of thrombotic vascular stress, inflammation and endothelial injury.

Huiming Gao MD, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: gao2@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Gao's research involves both the pathogenesis and treatment of Parkinson's disease, especially focusing on developing novel anti-inflammatory therapy for Parkinson's.

P. Peter Ghoroghchian | Status: MD/PhD candidate Email: ppg@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Peter's research is on the design and delivery of polymer nanoparticles containing drugs and/or near-infrared-emissive optical contrast agents for deep-tissue cancer diagnosis and therapy.

Teshell Greene | Status: PhD candidate Email: teshell@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Teshell is interest in neuropharmacology and understanding neurotransmitters receptor signaling, and their involvement in disorders such as Schizophrenia, and Bipolar Disorder.

Manish Gupta, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: guptam@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Dr. Gupta is primarily involved in conducting pharmacokinetic (PK), pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK/PD), and non-linear mixed effects modeling to support pre-clinical/clinical activities in which exposure-response relationships are sought. Dr. Gupta's research is focused on the investigation of the PK and pharmacodynamics (PD) of oncology, anti-infective and anesthetic drugs in pediatric patients and their dependency on developmental changes. He is also involved in designing and analyzing clinical trials for these agents in infants using clinical trial simulation.

Michael Halassa, MD | Status: PhD Candidate Email: mhalassa@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Michael is interested in models of CNS pathology. Some of that work involves the use of viral vectors that may one day have the potential to become therapeutically useful.

Andrea Hammons | Status: PhD Candidate Email: hammonsl@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Andrea genotypes DNA samples for polymorphisms in enzymes involved in the folate/homocysteine pathway. Low folate/high homocysteine levels are associated with several diseases, for which the lab has DNA banks.

Laura J. Hanisch, Psy.D. | Status: Post doctoral Fellow Email: hanisch@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Hanisch's research includes identifying and treating the psychosocial needs of cancer survivors.

Georgia Hatzivassiliou, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: georgiah@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Hatzivassiliou's research focuses on the identification of molecular targets for cancer therapy, in particular on metabolic pathways that fuel tumor cell growth. Initial studies have led to the identification of the lipogenic enzyme ATP citrate lyase as a target for cancer therapy. Dr. Hatzivassiliou has shown that inhibition of ATP citrate lyase by pharmacologic and genetic means leads to inhibition of tumor cell growth and the induction of tumor cell differentiation both in vitro and in vivo using xenograft models.

Kevin Haynes, PharMD | Status: PhD Candidate Email: khaynes@cceb.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Haynes is a pharmacist with research interests in adverse drug reactions. He is currently a PhD Epidemiology student with interest in pharmacoepidemiology methods. His current research focus is studying the potential of a genetic association with digoxin toxicity.

Matt Helf | Status: PhD candidate Email: mhelf@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Matt is interested in liver injury and hepatic regeneration, and the role of the hepatic stellate cell cytoskeleton as a mechanosensor.

Lauren Hook | Status: PhD candidate Email: lhook@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Lauren studies how Herpes simplex virus evades innate immunity.

Haitao Hu | Status: PhD Candidate Email: haitaohu@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Haitao is interested in immunopathogenesis of HIV infection and Vaccine and the anti-viral effect of modified dsRNA as a potential therapy for viral infection.

Jian Huang, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral fellow Email: jianh@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Huang's work mainly focuses on studying the mechanism of lithium action in neuropsychiatric disorders.

David E. Kaplan, MD | Status: Instructor Email: dakaplan@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Kaplan is interested in Hepatitis C immunopathogenesis. The lab studies T-cell responses against the virus in several human subject cohorts in order to understand the mechanisms by which the virus evades host defenses and establishes chronic infections in otherwise immunocompetent hosts.

Gurpreet Kapoor, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: gskapoor@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: The focus of Dr. Kapoor’s research is to understand the role of different components of aberrant EGFR signaling pathway in glioblastomas that may serve as potential candidates for targeted GBM therapy. With an effort to translate his recent observations from glioblastoma cell system, he is involved in the molecular subclassification of different grades of glial tumors utilizing tissue immunohistochemistry and RNA microarray analyses. The molecular subclassification of glial tumors would lead to a better understanding of the mechanism of gliomagenesis, which may ultimately lead to better management of therapeutic regimen in patients with astrocytic tumors.

Armen Karamanian | Status: PhD Candidate Email: armen@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Armen's research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of cardiovascular pathology and biology with a particular emphasis in the effects of hemodynamic forces and aging in vascular and valvular endothelium.

Margie Kasner | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: mkasner@cceb.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Ms. Kasner's research and clinical interests are in leukemia and bone marrow transplant trials.

Victor Khor | Status: PhD Candidate Email: vkhor@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Victor works on characterizing the in vivo function of an estrogen-specific metabolic enzyme in the regulation of tissue estrogen sensitivity. He uses genetically modified mice to study the effects of abnormal expression.

Eric Klein | Status: PhD Candidate Email: eak@dolphin.upenn.edu
Research interest: Eric is interested in tensional environment regulated cell cycle progression. This research could give insight as to how cells in certain contexts (cancer for example) can proliferate in the absence of adhesion.

Lex Kravitz | Status: PhD candidate Email: alexxai@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Lex is interested in understanding the cellular mechanisms underlying motivation and drug addiction.

Suresh Kumar, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: sureshmk@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Kumar's research focuses on melanoma cancer research and biomarkers of melanoma.

Takeshige Kunieda, MD PhD | Status: Post-doctoral fellow Email: kunieda@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Kunieda is interested in the relationships between the molecular clock genes and age-related diseases, such as atherosclerosis and diabetes.

Dominick Laddy | Status: PhD Candidate Email: djladdy@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dominick's research focuses on developing novel adjuvants to enhance the efficacy of the DNA vaccines being developed in our lab. Dominick's work includes in vitro and in vivo studies of adjuvant and vaccine efficacy, as well as studies probing the mechanisms of action of both vaccine elicitation and adjuvant enhancement of immune responses.

Krystle Lang | Status: PhD Candidate Email: krystlea@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Krystle is interested in cancer pharmacology.

Daniel-Joseph Leung | Status: PhD Candidate Email: djleung@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Daniel is interested in the study of choline and lipid metabolism changes in tumors treated with the differentiating agents. These changes are detected and evaluated using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). Joseph's work looks at mechanisms whereby these agents affect phospholipases in apoptosis and cytostasis, and the potential for mobile lipids to be markers for response to differentiation therapy and as an non-invasive methods for clinically tracking tumor progression.

Hui Li, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: Hui.Li@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Li's research focuses on the use lipoprotein based nanoparticle as a platform providing targeted delivery of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) agents, near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) probes and photodynamic therapy (PDT) agents to tumors simultaneously.

Hong Lin, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: honglin@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Lin's research interests are identifying early pathological alterations in neurodegenerative diseases and providing biomarkers for diagnosis and therapeutic targets for treatment of disease using in vitro and in vivo disease models.

Zhiyong Lu | Status: PhD Candidate Email: zhiyong@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Zhiyong's research focuses on the effects of folate on vascular endothelial cells.

Margaret Lucitt | Status: PhD Candidate Email: margaret@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Using mouse models of aterosclerosis, Margaret is interested in studying the effect of a prostaglandin receptor deletion on severity of disease and potential mechanisms involved.

Marek Ma, MD | Status: Instructor Email: Marek.Ma@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Marek's research interest is the role of proteases in traumatic axonal injury. The goal is to understand the mechanim underlying axonal transport disruption and neurodegeneration after trauma in the hope of developing therapeutic strategies.

Saafan Malik, MD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: saafan@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Malik's research focuses on Neurotrophin NT4/5 mediated therapy in Traumatic Brain Injury. Dr. Malik is particularly interested in discovering the genes up/down regulated by NT4/5 treatment that will dictate potential new therapeutic targets for Traumatic Brain Injury, to be translated into clinical trails.

Ruchita Maniar, M.S. | Status: Research Associate Email: maniar@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Ruchita is interested in Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics and modelling.

Jay Mehta, MD | Status: Research Associate Email: mehtaj@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Dr. Mehta's research focuses on the development and progression of atherosclerosis in mouse models. Dr. Mehta's goal is to utilize these techniques to evaluate the development of atherosclerosis in patients with autoimmune diseases, who are at greatly increased risk of cardiovascular events.

Leslie Milk | Status: Research fellow Email: milk@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Leslie's research is focused on protein and drug design intended for eventual clinical use or application.

Sunish Mohanan, D.V.M., M.S. | Status: Post-doctoral fellow Email: mohanan@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Mohanan's focus is on translational studies regarding smooth muscle cell function and bladder hypertrophy.

Allan F. Moore, MD | Status: Fellow Email: AFMOORE@PARTNERS.ORG
Research interest: Dr. Moore is interested in the complex genetics of type 2 diabetes mellitus. More specifically, he is interested in how common genetic variants of genes of known importance to diabetes impact the acute response to treatment with metformin or glipizide. Developing such an understanding will allow physicians to tailor therapy for individual patients, thus increasing efficacy and limiting unwanted side effects.

Ryan Moore | Status: MD/PhD candidate Email: rymoore@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Ryan is interested in mechanisms of atheroprotection by apoA-I and HDL, as well as murine models of atherosclerotic disease.

Jacqueline Morris | Status: PhD Candidate Email: jacquefm@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Jacqueline is interested in the etiology of depression, receptor dysfunction in depression, and improvement of antidepressant efficacy with simultaneous reduction of side effects.

Masanao Murakami, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: masanao@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Murakami works on Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) associated tumors and cancers.

Samuel Murphy | Status: Post-doctoral fellow Email: murphysa@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Dr. Murphy is interested in understanding cell mediated immunity to Adeno-associated virus vectors used for gene therapy. Dr. Murphy is also interested in understanding the biology of different vectors with the goal of improving vector construction for use in clinical settings.

Mahesh Narayan | Status: Research Associate Email: narayan@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Mahesh is a Research Associate at the Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at CHOP, involved with modeling and simulation studies conducted in support of the Children's Oncology Group's Chair's award to study the exposure-response relationships with actinomycin-D and vincristine in children with cancer. Additionally, Mahesh is involved in improving the pharmacotherapy of sodium nitroprusside as part of a pediatric off-patent drug study. Mahesh also serves as the project manager of the Pediatric Knowledgebase (PKB), which is an initiative to improve pharmacotherapeutic outcomes in children, supported by the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine.

Renuka Nayak | Status: MD/PhD Student Email: renuka.nayak@gmail.com
Research interest: Renuka is an MD/PhD student studying Cell and Molecular Biology and is interested in translational medicine.

Paul Neeson, PhD | Status: Research fellow Email: pneeson@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Neeson is interested in developing alternative therapies that could eradicate residual lymphoma disease present after the patient responded to the initial conventional therapy.

Temitope Olufade, MS, MPH | Status: Research Associate Email: Temitope.Olufade@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Temitope’s focus is the design, coordination and analysis of randomized clinical trials and observational studies. Temitope is also interested in recruitment and retention of minorities in clinical trials.

Mirko Paiardini, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: mpaiardi@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Paiardini's research is focused in understanding the mechanisms that determine the massive CD4+ T cell depletion and progression to AIDS during HIV infection. In particular, his studies focus on the new and increasingly appreciated concept that AIDS pathogenesis involves not only viral replication, but also abnormal activation and death of bystander cells. Dr. Pairdini and his colleagues are now planning to study if new approaches that specifically reduce immune activation and restore normal cell cycle regulation can decrease aberrant activation induced cell death and might be a novel immune-based therapy for HIV infection.

Alexander Perl, MD | Status: Instructor A Email: Alexander.Perl@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Perl's research interests are in growth dysregulation in acute myeloid leukemia. His goals are to design rational combinations of signal transduction inhibitors and chemotherapy for the treatment of AML.

Tom Price, PhD | Status: Postdoctoral Researcher Email: tom@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu Website:
Research interest: Tom Price is a post-doctoral researcher in bioinformatics and statistics. His interests include data analysis and statistical methods development in proteomics, genomics, and genetics.

Riju Ray | Status: PhD Candidate Email: rijuray@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Riju is interested in the effects of Atomoxetine on nicotine abstinence symptoms.

Dermot Reilly, PhD | Status: Postdoctoral Researcher Email: dermot@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu Website
Research interest: Dr. Reilly is interested in the circadian pattern of gene expression in the vasculature and its potential relevance to the well recognized diurnal variation in myocardial infarction and stroke. His work focuses on circulating humoral signals and their potential impact on the rhythmic transcriptional feedback loops which sustain the molecular clock in the vasculature. The lab uses in vivo and in-vitro models of the clock to examine signaling pathways which regulate circadian timing within the vasculature.

Emanuela Ricciotti, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: emanuela@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Ricciotti's research focuses on the proteomic and genomic analysis of inflammatory pathways in vascular cells.

Michael Rickels, MD | Status: Instructor Email: rickels@mail.med.upenn.edu Website
Research interest: Dr. Rickels's research interests include the metabolic consequences of islet transplantation as a potential treatment for Type I diabetes, and his research projects involve mechanistic GCRC-based human studies and pre-clinical trials in non-human primates.

Natalia A. Riobo, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: riobo@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Riobo's research interests are in the field of signal transduction relevant to cancer and vascular biology. In particular, she studies the role of a non-canonical Hedgehog signaling pathway, involving G proteins and PI3 kinase/Akt, in cellular events dependent and independent of the Gli transcription factor family. Her goal is the understanding of the role of the Hedgehog pathway in endothelial cell biology and angiogenesis.

John Ross | Status: PhD candidate Email: johnross@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: John's research focus is on glutamate transporter regulation in models of epilepsy and traumatic brain injury.

Anna Stanislawska-Sachadyn | Status: Post-doctoral Researcher Email: annast@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Anna’s research involves the study of the functional polymorhisms in the folate/homocysteine pathway genes including the impact of those polymorphisms on a patient's response to methotrexate treatment.

Carly Sayers | Status: PhD Candidate Email: msayers@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Carly’s work focuses on genotyping for several polymorphisms in genes involved in folate metabolism. Pharmacogenetics could eventually play an important role in selecting subjects for clinical trials based on their genetic predisposition to respond to a drug. It may also be important in prescribing certain drugs, as some polymorphisms lend to more toxic side effects.

Keith Schutsky | Status: PhD candidate Email: kschutsk@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Keith's research interests include looking at norepinephrine's effects on learning, memory, development, maternal care, psychiatric illness and pathophysiology.

Elizabeth Schwarzbach | Status: PhD candidate Email: eschwarz@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Elizabeth's research focuses on studying the mechanisms that underlie cognitive impairments following traumatic brain injury. Using electrophysiology, molecular biology, and behavior studies the goal is to determine alterations in limibic hippocampus functioning, neurotransmission, and behavior to provide possible therapeutic targets.

Tabitha A. Shanies, DVM | Status: Fellow Email: shanies@vet.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Shanies' current area of research is investigation of strains of _E.coli_ that infect dogs and cats in the clinical setting of the veterinary teaching hospital. She is performing genotypic and phenotypic molecular analyses of these organisms, as well as examining potential epidemiologic risk factors.

Anup Sharma | Status: MD/PhD Student Email: anup@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Anup's research interests include investigating pathways of neuronal cell death associated with neurological disease at the single cell level.

Jae-Won Shin | Status: PhD candidate Email: jaewons@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Jae-Won is interested in studying mechanism and possible treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Eric Simone | Status: PhD candidate Email: esimone@seas.upenn.edu
Research interest: Mr. Simone engineers biocompatible polymers and polymer nanocarrier (PNC) systems for the targeted delivery of enzymes. He focuses on tuning degradation kinetics with intended therapeutic duration, with emphasis on antioxidant enzyme delivery for treatment of oxidative stress, both in cell culture and in mouse models.

Karen D. Sims, MD/PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: Karen.Sims@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Sims is currently an Infectious Diseases fellow in the Department of Medicine, and her interests are in infectious diseases in solid organ transplantation. She is currently working in the area of Epstein-Barr virus lymphomagenesis, and is interested in markers of susceptibility to viral infection, development of PTLD and organ rejection in this population. Her research goals are to utilize bench research in model systems using human cell lines and patient-derived samples to identify useful biomarkers of patient susceptibility to these disease processes, with the goal of identifying and intervening in at-risk patients.

Carsten Skarke, MD | Status: Visiting Scholar Email: cskarke@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Skarke is interested in the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and pharmacogenetics of cyclooxygenase inhibitors and opioid analgesics. He also focuses on the modulation and quantification of oxidative stress. His research activities particularly include Phase I clinical trials.

Jeffrey Skolnik, MD | Status: Instructor Email: skolnik@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Dr. Skolnik's work is specifically geared to bench-to-bedside research. He works to define the pharmacokinetics of anti-cancer agents in children.

Neal Sondheimer, MD PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: sondheimer@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Neal is interested in translational research into mitochondrial disorders, including understanding of how transcription and translation of the mitochondrial genome is affected in patients with mutations in mitochondrial DNA.

Wenliang Song, MD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: wenliang@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Wenliang research focuses on oxidative stress in cardiovascular diease.

Vijay Srinivasan, MD | Status: Instructor Email: srinivasan@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Dr. Srinivasan's research interests involve efforts to understand stress hyperglycemia of critical illness in children, and to describe pathways involved in the development of insulin resistance and glucose variability during critical illness. To this end, he is developing a multi-center protocol with the help of the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigator (PALISI) group to study strict glucose control with intensive insulin therapy in critically ill children (anticipated NIH funding - Feb 2008). Simultaneously, he is collaborating with the nurse practitioner group (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit/Progressive Care Unit at CHOP) to develop a prospective database to study nutrition and energy expenditure, especially glucose handling, in both acute and chronic critical illness in children. His ultimate goal is to carry out translational studies to describe pathways involved in nutritional derangements in pediatric critical illness, and to identify mechanisms and targets for intervention to improve energy balance to favorably influence outcomes from critical illness in children.

William Stacey, MD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: William.Stacey@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Stacey is doing a clinical fellowship in epilepsy at HUP, and in addition, is working on a translational project in Dr. Litt's lab. His project is to help design stimuli that can be used to stop seizures in an implantable antiepilepsy device.

Kevin Sterling, MD | Status: Clinical fellow Email: Kevin.Sterling@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Sterling is doing clinical research in hypertension/chronic kidney disease. He and his colleagues will be starting a study in the CTRC looking at Central Hemodynamics and proteinuria.

Thomas C. Stover, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral fellow Email: tstover@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Stover's research interests are in the area of targeted drug delivery to the tumor vasculature.

Jane Stubbe, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral fellow Email: jstubbe@mail.med.upenn.edu Website
Research interest: Dr. Stubbe is interested in mice models of cardiovascular diseases.

Irene Su, MD | Status: Clinical Fellow Email: ISu@obgyn.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Su's research focuses on reproductive aging. Specifically, Dr. Su looks at various hormonal measures and drug metabolizing enzyme polymorphisms in the development of ovarian failure after exposure to chemotherapy in cancer patients.

Carolyn Summers | Status: PhD Candidate Email: corbe@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Carolyn is interested in endothelial cell culture model exposed to low folate conditions, which brings out a proatherosclerotic phenotype. Carolyn will be looking for changes in expression of inflammatory proteins, then she will find polymorphisms in these genes involved in atherosclerosis and genotype two DNA banks which include two patient groups at increased risk of CVD to test if the polymorphisms affect CVD risk.

Neeti Suri, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: neeti_suri86@yahoo.com
Research interest: Dr. Suri's research interests are structural and functional imaging markers of neurodevelopment and various neurological disorders.

Kirk Townsend, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: ktownsen@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Townsend's current research involves the role of lipoxygenases in Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis.

Kun-Chih Kelvin Tsai, MD, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: kkctsai@gmail.com
Research interest: Dr. Tsai is studying cell stress response and drug resistance using novel tissue culture models, which can be potentially useful for translational research.

Subhash Verma, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: vermas@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Subhash works on understanding the mechanism of Kaposi's sarcoma associated Herpesvirus (KSHV) mediated cancer.

Dan Vogl, MD | Status: Instructor A Email: dan.vogl@uphs.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Vogl is interested in clinical trials in the therapy of hematologic malignancies and specifically myeloma, with an emphasis on Phase I and II trials, improving the rationale behind dosing of existing therapies and new drugs, and incorporating correlative endpoints in early drug development.

Adina Vultur, PhD | Status: Postdoctoral Fellow Email: avultur@wistar.org
Research interest: Dr. Vultur’s current research focuses on the development of novel and personalized therapies for melanoma. In collaboration with the Departments of Medical Genetics and Medical Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania, panels of melanoma cell lines will be categorized based on their genetic and biological properties and matched with carefully selected therapeutic agents that target identified “weaknesses” in these tumor cells. Her preclinical experiments and models, designed to predict responses in the clinic, aim to increase the efficiency and reduce the toxicity of future melanoma treatments.

Dairong Wang, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: dairong@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Wang uses conditional knockout animal models to study the in vivo drug effects and related mechanism.

Julie Wang | Status: PhD Candidate Email: julielw@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: My research focuses on the investigation and development of antidepressant drugs with faster onset of action.

Miao Wang, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: miao@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Miao's research involves mechanism study of atherosclerosis and identification of novel anti-inflammatory drug target.

Ramez (David) Wassef | Status: Post-doctoral fellow Email: ramezw2@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Wassef's current research is focused on the role of the redox changes of cellular excitability on aging and age-related disease especially Parkinson's disease.

Angela Wehr | Status: PhD candidate Email: wehr@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Angela's research will focus on understanding tumor-stroma interactions in pancreatic adenocarcinoma. She intends to use proteomic techniques to identify and characterize proteins involved in paracrine signaling within the tumor microenvironment. This research may lead to the identification of new drug targets or biomarkers for the early detection of pancreatic cancer.

Cong Wei | Status: PhD candidate Email: congwei@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Cong Wei is interested research that would translate the results obtained in the cell or tissue level to the metabolitic mechanism in the real physiological system.

Elizabeth Westgate | Status: Postdoctoral Fellow Email: liz@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Liz's research revolves around vascular circadian clocks and their role in regulating time-dependent thrombotic responses to vascular injury.

Stephen Wilson, PhD | Status: Postdoctoral Researcher Email: wilson.stephenj@gmail.com
Research interest: Dr. Wilson's research examines the impact of dimerization on the functional and regulatory characteristics of the receptors for prostacyclin and thromboxane.

Dan Wolf, M.D, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral fellow Email: danwolf@bbl.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Wolf is interested in using functional neuroimaging techniques, combined with genetic analysis and pharmacological challenges, to explore the pathophysiological mechanisms of schizophrenia and other chronic and severe neuropsychiatric disorders, to better understand the mechanism of action of existing medications, and to test novel medications for their effect on neuroimaging endophenotypes of psychiatric disease and related clinical phenotypes. Dr. Wolf is particularly interested in the interaction of mesolimbic dopaminergic systems with hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex, and how dysregulation of these interactions may produce both positive and negative symptoms of psychosis.

Di Wu | Status: Senior Research Investigator Email: wudi@email.chop.edu
Research interest: Clinical and Preclinical Pharmacology, Drug Discovery & Development, Drug metabolism, Pharmacokinetics, PK/PD modeling.

Nan Wu | Status: PhD Candidate Email: nanwu@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Nan is interested in the completion of studies in mechanism and rational dose selection.

Junwang Xu | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: junwang@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Xu focuses on pathogenesis and therapeutic target of neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) vasculopathy and cardiac hypertrophy.

Jizhou Yan, M.D, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: jyan2@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Yan is interested in chromatin remodeling and histone modifications in regulations of Hox genes.

Bu Yin | Status: PhD candidate Email: buyin@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Bu is interested in how hematopoietic stem cells give rise to different progenitor cells. Particularly, Bu would like to know more about T cell development and differentiation, with possible applications in elucidating the processes of leukemia onset and malignant cancer transformation.

Ying Yu, MD, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: yuying@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu
Research interest: Ying's research focuses on COX isoforms and their downstream pathways in cardiovascular system.

Zhou Yu | Status: PhD Candidate Email: zhou@spirit.gcrc.upenn.edu Website
Research interest: Zhou's research focuses on using genetic mouse models to address the roles of cycooxygenase and lipoxygenase pathways in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.

Fanyi Zeng, MD, PhD | Status: Post-doctoral Fellow Email: zengf@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Zeng's research interest is to identify and study RNA binding proteins (RBPs) associated with GluR2 in the central nervous system, in particular, to study how these RBPs modulate translation and contribute to synaptic plasticity that underlies learning and memory.

Gao Zhang | Status: PhD candidate Email: gaozhang@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Gao's research interests center on the microRNA's roles in the cancer development using a combination of genomics and systems biology approaches.

Li Zhu, MD, PhD | Status: Research Associate Email: lizhu@mail.med.upenn.edu
Research interest: Dr. Zhu is interested in studying the mechanism of platelet activation.

Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics || University of Pennsylvania