CHANOCK LAB

Phoebe Lee, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow

Phoebe Lee, Ph.D., joined the Laboratory of Translation Genomics (LTG) as a postdoctoral Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) fellow in August 2010. Dr. Lee conducts her research under the mentorship of Dr. Stephen Chanock, M.D., where she focuses on functional validation studies for SNPs identified in cancer-specific genome-wide association studies. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology from Duke University in May 2010, and B.S. in Biology from University of Washington in 2003. Prior to joining LTG, Dr. Lee’s doctoral research involved the study of mechanisms underlying reciprocal mitotic recombination using the model organism S. cerevisiae with Dr. Tom Petes, Ph.D., at Duke University. 

DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications database)

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Mitchell Machiela, Sc.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow

Mitchell Machiela, Sc.D., joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) as a postdoctoral Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA ) fellow in August 2012.  Under the mentorship of Dr. Stephen Chanock, M.D., Dr. Machiela is investigating the prevalence, location, and molecular characteristics of human clonal mosaic events.  His interests include prostate cancer genetics, statistical genetics, and fine mapping disease susceptibility loci.  Dr. Machiela earned his Sc.D. in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health in May 2012 under the mentorship of Dr. David J. Hunter, M.B.B.S., Sc.D.  His doctoral work focused on germline genetic variation and prostate cancer risk.  Prior degrees include an M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in biology and B.A. in Spanish from Calvin College.

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Nilabja Sikdar, Ph.D. - Research Fellow

Nilabja Sikdar, Ph.D., joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) as a visiting research fellow in August of 2010. Under the direction of Dr. Stephen Chanock, M.D, his current work is focused on a chromosome 11 project for prostate, renal, and breast cancers. Dr. Sikdar obtained his Ph.D. from the Indian Statistical Institute in 2005, where he worked on oral cancer genetics and epidemiology. He then completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Genetics and Molecular Biology Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) under the mentorship of Dr. Kyungjae Myung, Ph.D. While at NHGRI, Dr. Sikdar worked on suppression mechanisms of genomic instability in several model organisms.  Dr. Sikdar is conversant in molecular techniques including genomic DNA isolation from human blood tissues, RNA isolation from tissues RT-PCR, transformation, cloning, yeast GCR assay, yeast transformation, human cell line work, mice work and in silico work, to name a few. 

DCEG Publications (text and abstracts from our publications database)

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AMUNDADOTTIR LAB

Jason Hoskins, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow

In February 2011, Dr. Hoskins joined the lab of Dr. Laufey Amundadottir, Ph.D.,  as a Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) fellow, where he is studying the molecular mechanism by which common risk variants on chromosome 13q22 confer susceptibility to pancreatic cancer. Dr. Hoskins received his Ph.D. in biochemistry (2007) and his B.S. in biochemistry (2002) at the University of Rochester. His thesis work in the lab of Scott Butler, PhD., explored the RNA-based mechanism of toxicity caused by the chemotherapeutic drug 5-fluorouracil (5FU) in S. cerevisiae. Dr. Hoskins went on to conduct postdoctoral research in the lab of Charles Thornton, M.D., where he collaborated with the National Chemical Genomics Center to screen for small molecules able to disrupt the binding of the splicing factor MBNL1 from CUG repeat RNA, which is a key interaction causing type I myotonic dystrophy (DM1). He also explored the endogenous decay pathways potentially involved in the destruction of the toxic CUG repeat expansion RNA.

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Jinping Jia, Ph.D. - Research Fellow

Jinping Jia, Ph.D., joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics,(LTG) as a visiting postdoctoral fellow, where she progressed to become a research fellow, in January 2009. Under the guidance of Dr. Laufey Amundadottir, Ph.D., Dr. Jia focuses on the molecular phenotypes of association findings and functional characterization of plausible causal variants in order to understand how common sequence variation plays a role in the development of cancer. In 2006, Dr. Jia earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Biology at the China Agriculture University in China, working on cDNA sequencing and microarray analysis. Prior to that, she earned her M.S. in genetics from the Shanxi Agriculture University in China.

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Hemang Parikh, Ph.D. - Research Fellow

Hemang Parikh, Ph.D., joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics(LTG) as a visiting postdoctoral fellow, subsequently a research fellow, in the lab of Dr. Laufey Amundadottir, Ph.D., in May 2009. Dr. Parikh is currently performing a bioinformatic analysis of next-generation sequencing data - DNA-sequencing, ChIP-sequencing, RNA-sequencing and micro-RNA sequencing-platforms from different cancer cell-lines. Dr. Parikh also conducts microarray data analysis from Illumina platforms, analysis of genome-wide association studies, and expression quantitative trait loci (e-QTL) analysis for pancreatic cancer. In 2009, under the mentorship of Dr. Leif Groop, M.D., Ph.D., Lund University (Sweden), Dr. Parikh earned his Ph.D. in endocrinology and medical bioinformatics, focusing on integrating bioinformatics and physiology to describe genetic effects in complex polygenic diseases. He received his M.S. in software systems technology from the University of Sheffield, UK in 2003, and his B.S. in construction technology and management from Gujarat University, India in 2000.

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Marta Dzyadyk, B.S. - Post-baccalaureate Fellow

Marta Dzyadyk joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) as a post-baccalaureate Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) fellow in the lab of Dr. Laufey Amundadottir, Ph.D., as of July 2012. She received her B.S. in biology from Syracuse University in May 2012. Prior to arriving, she spent two years in the lab of Dr. Melissa Pepling, Ph.D., at Syracuse University studying the role of progesterone receptors in neonatal oocyte development and characterizing the expression of these receptors. Ms. Dzyadyk is working on the genomic and functional characterization of the NR5A2 gene, identified by PanScan, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of pancreatic cancer conducted within the NCI Cohort Consortium and the PanC4 Consortium.

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Abdisamad Ibrahim, B.S. - Postbaccalaureate Fellow

Abdisamad Ibrahim joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) as a visiting post-baccalaureate felow under the mentorship of Dr. Laufey Amundadottir, Ph.D. Ibrahim graduated from the University of Minnesota with Bachelors of Science Honors in genetics, cell biology, and development in May 2011. At the University of Minnesota, he studied regulation of steroid hormone production in Drosophila in the lab of Dr. Michael O'Connor, Ph.D. He also studied interactions of T cells with antigen presenting cells in the lab of Dr. Yoji Shimizu, Ph.D. Under the mentorship of Dr. Amundadottir, he is working on functional characterization of SNPs associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer in chr 13q22.1. 

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BROWN LAB

Jiyeon Choi, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow

Jiyeon Choi, Ph.D., joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) in October 2011 as a postdoctoral Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) fellow in the lab of Dr. Kevin M. Brown, Ph.D. In the lab, Dr. Choi is currently working on the functional characterization of common and rare genetic variants contributing to melanoma susceptibility by following up recent genome-wide association studies and family re-sequencing work. Dr. Choi has a Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, where she pursued functional studies of autism-associated common genetic variants with Dr. James Millonig, Ph.D. She also has an M.S. in molecular biology from Korea University and a B.S. in biological sciences from Ewha Womans University, South Korea.

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Tongwu Zhang, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow

Tongwu Zhang, Ph.D., joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) in July 2012 as a visiting post-doctoral fellow under the mentorship of Kevin M. Brown, Ph.D. In DCEG, Dr. Zhang will focus on the analysis the GWAS data for identifying the functional characterization of common and rare genetic variants contributing to melanoma. He received his Ph.D. in bioinformatics from Zhejiang University, China in June 2012. During his Ph.D. research, he joined the Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Science as a visiting graduate in 2007, where he worked on whole genome assembly and RNA-sequencing analysis. In 2011, he joined the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as visiting scholar for the Date Palm Genome project.

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Matthew Makowski, B.S. - Post-baccalaureate Fellow

Matthew Makowski joined the lab of Kevin M. Brown, Ph.D., at the Laboratory of Translational Genomics  in October 2012 as a post-baccalaureate Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) and Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) fellow after graduating with a B.S. with Honors in biology from American University in May 2012. While at American University, Matthew analyzed relative levels of codon usage bias in model insect species exhibiting heterometabolic versus hemimetabolic development, under the mentorship of Dr. David Carlini, PhD. Also, during the summer of 201, he studied RSV particle assembly via gag hexameric subunits and EV-71 binding mechanics with receptor PSGL-1 at the Penn State School of Medicine under Dr. Susan Hafenstein, Ph.D.  Under the mentorship of Dr. Brown and Dr. Jiyeon Choi, Matthew performs post-GWAS functional analysis of the chromosome 1q42.12 melanoma susceptibility locus, focusing specifically on the role of the Parp1 gene in melanoma risk.

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PROKUNINA-OLSSON LAB

Yi-Ping Fu, Ph.D. - Research Fellow

Yi-Ping Fu, Ph.D., joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) in June 2009. Arriving as a visiting fellow, upon the completion of her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, Dr. Fu was promoted to Research Fellow in October 2011 and is primarily working with Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Ph.D. Her work focuses on the molecular and genetic epidemiology of various cancers such as breast, prostate and bladder, with special focus on characterization of the molecular phenotypes of strong signals from genome-wide association studies. A native of Taipei, Taiwan, she received her M.S. in epidemiology from National Taiwan University and her B.S. in public health from Taipei Medical University. Her work with Dr. Craig Hanis, Ph.D. at the University of Texas Health Science Center focused on the genetic epidemiology of type 2 diabetes and its complications among Mexican Americans. Dr. Fu’s research interests include using integrated large-scale genotyping, sequencing, mRNA and microRNA expression data to understand the etiology of cancer and to explore potential biomarkers. 

Awards:  2011 Fellows Award for Research Excellence, 2012 NCI Directors Career Development Award

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Wei Tang, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow

Wei Tang, Ph.D., joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) as a visiting postdoctoral fellow in February 2009. Under the guidance of Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Ph.D., Dr. Tang currently focuses on cancer association study by fine-mapping susceptibility loci from genome-wide association studies. One of Dr. Tang's on-going projects is to fine-map the region containing JAZF1, which harbors a prostate cancer susceptibility loci. Dr. Tang's other major work is applying next generation sequencing methods (454 and Illumina) to analyze DNA, RNA-seq and ChIP-seq to detect SNPs, splicing forms and novel transcripts that might be associated with cancer. Dr. Tang earned his Ph.D. at the Bio-X center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University under the mentorship of Dr. Lin He, Ph.D., focusing on genetics of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other complex diseases.

Awards: 2011 Fellows Award for Research Excellence, 2012 Fellows Award for Research Excellence, 2012 NCI Directors Career Development Award

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Nathan Brand, B.A. - Post-baccalaureate Fellow

Nathan Brand first joined the Laboratory of Translational Genomics (LTG) in May 2011 as a summer Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) fellow, working in the lab of Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Ph.D. Nathan worked on cloning a novel interferon gene, IFNL4, and genotyping a genetic variant that creates this gene in samples from patients with different outcomes for clearance of Hepatitis C virus. In October 2011 Nathan left LTG to work with Dr. Chandy John, from the University of Minnesota Medical School Department of Global Pediatrics, in Kampala, Uganda  on the neurocognitive effects of pediatric severe malaria.  In October 2012, Nathan returned to Dr. Prokunina-Olsson’s lab as a post-baccalaureate CRTA fellow, and is currently studying functional properties of wild-type IFNL4 and its natural allelic variants. Nathan earned a B.A. from Colorado College in May 2011.

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Luyang Liu, B.S. - Post-baccalaureate Fellow

Luyang Liu returned to the Laboratory of Translational Genomics as a post-baccalaureate fellow in 2012, after working as a three-time Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) summer fellow from 2009-2011, under the mentorship of Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, Ph.D. During her summer fellowships, she contributed to the functional analysis of single nucleotide polymorphism associations with prostate and bladder cancers. Luyang received a B.A. in biochemistry from the Barnard College of Columbia University in 2012, and re-joined Dr. Prokunina-Olsson’s lab, where she currently conducts research investigating the effects of IFNL4 on signaling in HepG2 hepatocellular carcinoma cells.

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Learn about research training opportunities in the Laboratory of Translational Genomics.