Current and Past Scholars

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Meet the trainees and alumni of our K12 program.       
 

Current Trainees

Memorial Sloan Kettering Medical Oncologist Yonina R. Murciano-Goroff
Yonina Murciano-Goroff

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2022-Present
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending Level 1
  • Laboratory Mentor: Piro Lito
  • Clinical Mentor: Alexander Drilon/Bob Li
  • Project Title: Combined next-generation RAS and AURKA inhibition for KRAS G12C mutant tumors

Varun Narendra
Varun Narendra

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2022-Present
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending L1
  • Laboratory Mentor: Scott Lowe
  • Clinical Mentor: Eytan Stein
  • Project Title: Interrogating and exploiting TP53 alterations in ckAML

Justin Jee
Justin Jee

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2023-Present
  • Current Position: Instructor
  • Laboratory Mentor: Sohrab Shah
  • Clinical Mentor: Bob Li
  • Project Title: Automated annotation for large-scale clinicogenomic models of patient outcomes

Anupriya Singhal
Anupriya Singhal

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2023-Present
  • Current Position: Fellow
  • Laboratory Mentor: Tuomas Tamella
  • Clinical Mentor: Eileen O’Reilly
  • Project Title: Interrogating Cancer Cell States Driving Resistance to KRAS inhibition in Pancreatic Cancer

Elizabeth Coffee
Elizabeth Coffee

  • Department: Neurology
  • Training Period: 2023-Present
  • Current Position: Instructor
  • Laboratory Mentor: Kayvan Keshari
  • Clinical Mentor: Ingo Mellinghoff
  • Project Title: A hyperpolarized MRI probe to guide treatment in glioma

Bill Diplas
Bill Diplas

  • Department: Radiation Oncology
  • Training Period: 2023-Present
  • Current Position: Fellow
  • Laboratory Mentor: Agnel Sfeir
  • Clinical Mentor: Nadeem Riaz
  • Project Title: Targeting alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) in cancer

Ivan Kotchetkov
Ivan Kotchetkov

  • Department: Neurology
  • Training Period: 2021-Present
  • Current Position: Instructor
  • Laboratory Mentor: Michel Sadelain
  • Clinical Mentor: Ingo Mellinghoff
  • Project Title: Developing a CAR T Cell Therapy for Glioblastoma by addressing Antigen Heterogeneity

Urvi Shah
Urvi Shah

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2021-Present
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending Level 1
  • Laboratory Mentor: Marcel Ven Den Brink
  • Clinical Mentor: Alexander Lesokhin
  • Project Title: Characterizing the effects of a pilot plant-based dietary intervention in overweight/obese patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance and smoldering multiple myeloma

Marie Will
Marie Will

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2021-Present
  • Current Position: Fellow
  • Laboratory Mentor: Charles Sawyers
  • Clinical Mentor: Sarat Chandarlapaty
  • Project Title: Functional and biologic consequences of GATA3 mutations in breast cancer
Alumni

Joshua Drago
Joshua Drago

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2020-Present
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending Level 1
  • Laboratory Mentor: Sarat Chandarlapaty
  • Clinical Mentor: Shanu Modi
  • Project Title: Development of rational biomarkers for next generation antibody-drug conjugates in breast cancer

Christopher Hackett
Christopher Hackett

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2020-Present
  • Current Position: Oncologist and Physician-Scientist, Weill Cornell Medicine
  • Laboratory Mentor: Jedd Wolchok
  • Clinical Mentor: William Tap
  • Project Title: Immune-checkpoint CAR T cell therapy for melanoma and small cell lung cancer

Michael Kinnaman
Michael Kinnaman

  • Department: Pediatrics
  • Training Period: 2020-Present
  • Current Position: Medical Director, Regeneron
  • Laboratory Mentor: Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue
  • Clinical Mentor: Julia Glade Bender
  • Project Title: Tracking the Origins and Drivers of Metastatic Expansion in Osteosarcoma

Minsi Zhang
Minsi Zhang

  • Department: Radiation Oncology
  • Training Period: 2020-Present
  • Current Position: Instructor
  • Laboratory Mentor: Andrea Ventura
  • Clinical Mentor: Nancy Lee
  • Project Title: Role of miRNA activity in Tumor and Normal Tissue Response to Radiation

Salvador Alonso Martinez
Salvador Alonso Martinez

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2022-Present
  • Current Position: Instructor
  • Laboratory Mentor: Lukas Dow
  • Clinical Mentor: Leonard Saltz
  • Project Title: Targeting regenerative reprogramming in colorectal cancer

Vinod Balachandran
Vinod Balachandran

  • Department: Surgery
  • Training Period: 2016-2019
  • Current Position: Associate Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: Steven Leach
  • Clinical Mentor: Jedd Wolchok
  • Project Title: Combining neoantigen vaccines with PD-1 blockade in pancreatic cancer

Paul Romesser
Paul Romesser

  • Department: Radiation Oncology
  • Training Period: 2016-2019
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: Scott Lowe
  • Clinical Mentor: Chris Crane
  • Project Title: Preclinical functional genetic mouse model to study novel medical countermeasures to protect against radiation enteritis

Barbara (Gila) Spitzer
Barbara (Gila) Spitzer

  • Department: Pediatrics
  • Training Period: 2016-2019
  • Current Position: Section Chief, Pediatric BMT Hackensack Meridian Health
  • Laboratory Mentor: Ross Levine
  • Clinical Mentor: Eytan Stein
  • Project Title: Characterizing transcriptional and epigenetic signatures induced by FLT3 activation to rationally design targeted therapies for FLT3/ITD AML

Simone Krebs
Simone Krebs

  • Department: Radiology
  • Training Period: 2016-2020
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: Steven Larson
  • Clinical Mentor: Heiko Schoder
  • Project Title: Developing non-immunogenic, sensitive, and specific tracking strategies for monitoring clinical cell therapy trials

Anthony Daniyan
Anthony Daniyan

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2017-2020
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: Renier Brentjens
  • Clinical Mentor: Jae Park
  • Project Title: The Development of a CD19 Targeted Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell Secreting an Immune-Modulating Cytokine for the Treatment of Relapsed and Refractory Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Samuel Funt
Samuel Funt

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2017-Present
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: Jedd Wolchok
  • Clinical Mentor: Dean Bajorin
  • Project Title: Establishing an immunocompetent, carcinogen-induced mouse model as a platform for immunotherapy development in bladder cancer

Michael Ortiz
Michael Ortiz

  • Department: Pediatrics
  • Training Period: 2017-2020
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: Alex Kentsis
  • Clinical Mentor: Paul Meyers
  • Project Title: Prohibitin is a prognostic marker of treatment failure and therapeutic target to block chemotherapy resistance in Wilms’ tumor

Jeremy Setton
Jeremy Setton

  • Department: Radiation Oncology
  • Training Period: 2017-2020
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending Level 1
  • Laboratory Mentor: Simon Powell
  • Clinical Mentor: Matthias Karajannis
  • Project Title: The CXCR4-CXCLevel 12/beta catenin/Cyclin D1 axis - a potential therapeutic target in Neurofibromatosis type 1 associated Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors

Sameer Farouk Sait
Sameer Farouk Sait

  • Department: Pediatrics
  • Training Period: 2018-2021
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending L1
  • Laboratory Mentor: Luis Parada
  • Clinical Mentor: Nancy Lee
  • Project Title: Combined inactivation of Rb & p27kip1 mediates a novel mechanism of antiandrogen resistance

Kamal Menghrajani
Kamal Menghrajani

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2018-2021
  • Current Position: White House Fellow, The White House
  • Laboratory Mentor: Ross Levine, Mike Berger
  • Clinical Mentor: Martin Tallman
  • Project Title: The Impact of TP53 Loss on the Classification and Prognosis of Myeloid Malignancies

Steven Maron
Steven Maron

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2019-2022
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: David Solit/Nikolaus Schultz
  • Clinical Mentor: Yelena Janjigian
  • Project Title: Pembrolizumab/Trastuzumab: overcoming intrapatient heterogeneity in esophagogastric cancer

Fresia Pareja
Fresia Pareja

  • Department: Pathology
  • Training Period: 2019-2022
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: Jorge Reis-Filho
  • Clinical Mentor: Hannah Wen
  • Project Title: Defining the oncogenic impact of genetic alterations in endosomal pH regulators and their implications in resistance to targeted therapies

Wungki Park
Wungki Park

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2019-2022
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue
  • Clinical Mentor: Eileen O’Reilly
  • Project Title: Immunologic Synthetic Lethality in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) with Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD)

Eugene Pietzak
Eugene Pietzak

  • Department: Surgery
  • Training Period: 2019-2022
  • Current Position: Assistant Attending
  • Laboratory Mentor: David Solit
  • Clinical Mentor: Dean Bajorin
  • Project Title: Truncating ARID1A mutations as a therapeutic target in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer

Jimmy Zhao
Jimmy Zhao

  • Department: Medicine
  • Training Period: 2020-2022
  • Current Position: Global Development Medical Director and Baselga Scholar AstraZeneca
  • Laboratory Mentor: Charles Sawyer
  • Clinical Mentor: Dana Rathkopf
  • Project Title: Investigate the cell of origin and the molecular mechanisms of lineage plasticity in neuroendocrine prostate cancer