CDI / Georgetown – Postdoctoral Seminar Series

Thursday, June 5, 2025
3:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Katarina E. AuBuchon, PhD
Mentors: Hannah Arem, PhD, and Kristi Graves, PhD
Title: “The Role of the Social Environment and Communication in Equity Across the Cancer Care Continuum”

Friday, December 20, 2024
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Elham Mohebbi, PhD
Mentor: Laura Rozek, PhD
Title: “Post-Diagnosis Smoking Cessation and Survival Outcomes of Head and Neck Cancer Patients”Title: “Post-Diagnosis Smoking Cessation and Survival Outcomes of Head and Neck Cancer Patients”

Wei He, PhD
Mentor: Robert Beckman, MD
Title: “Personalized Cancer Treatment Strategies Incorporating Irreversible and Reversible Drug Resistance Mechanisms”

Wednesday, December 4, 2024
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Ashley Varkey, DO
Dr. Johannes Zakrzewski Lab
Title: “Immunotherapy of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Enabled By Targeting of Pan-Cancer Molecular Patterns with a Novel Trispecific T Cell Engager”

Chen-Yu Tsai, PhD
Dr. Martin Gengenbacher Lab
Title: “Splenic Marginal Zone B Cells Restrict Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection by Shaping the Cytokine Pattern and Cell-Mediated Immunity”

Thursday, May 16, 2024
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Raju Shivarathri, PhD
Dr. Jigar Desai Lab
Title: “Complement C3 Promotes Sterilizing Pulmonary Antifungal Immunity”

Alireza Labani Motlagh, PhD
Dr. Binfeng Lu Lab
Title: “Mutant p53 Renders Resistance to Checkpoint Inhibitor-Based Tumor Immunotherapy Through Inducing Autophagy”

Thursday, December 7, 2023
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Yuanyuan Tian, PhD
Mentor: Dr. Yi Zhang
Title: “PDL1 and IFNa: Prediction and Prevention for GVHD”

Hariprasad Thangavel, PhD
Mentor: Dr. Jyothi Nagajyothi
“Adipomes: Key Orchestrators of the Breast Tumor Microenvironment”

Thursday, June 8, 2023
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Emre Deniz, PhD
Mentor: Aykut Uren, MD
Title: “Ezrin Asserts its Roles on Osteosarcoma Metastasis Through Interacting with RNAs”

Thursday, May 25, 2023
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Hariprasad Thangavel, PhD
Mentor: Dr. Jyothi Nagajyothi
Title: “Adipocyte-tumor Cell Crosstalk in Breast Cancer Pathogenesis”

Jia Liu, PhD
Dr. Hai-Hui Xue Lab
Title: “CTCF Mediates Effector CD8+ T cell Differentiation Through Genomic Reorganization”

December 15, 2022
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Todd Young, PhD
Mentor: Rebecca Riggins, PhD
Title: “Expression of Amino Acid Transporters and Metabolic Enzymes in Invasive Lobular Breast Cancer”

Susree Modepalli, PhD
Mentor: Gary Kupfer, MD
Title: “Elucidating the Role of Codanin-1 in Erythroid Differentiation”

December 1, 2022
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Yasmine Hassoun, PhD
Dr. David Perlin Lab
Title: “Mutations in a Fatty Acid Elongase Evolve During Antifungal Drug Treatment in Candida glabrata Colonizing the Gut and Contribute to Drug Tolerance In Vivo”

Wassihun Aragaw, PhD
Dr. Thomas Dick Lab
Title: “Pyrazinoic Acid Analogs as Inhibitors of Mycobacterial Aspartate Decarboxylase”

June 9, 2022
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Jennifer Marks, MD
Mentor: Stephen V. Liu, MD
Title: “MET Exon 14 Skipping Mutation in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) by Specific Mutation, Histology, and Smoking History”

Juntae Kwon, PhD
Mentor: Cecil Han, PhD
Title: “USP13 Overexpression Drives Lineage Plasticity in Lung Cancer Via Stabilizing MYC Protein”

May 26, 2022
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Amir Arastehfar, PhD
Dr. David Perlin Lab
Title: “The Impact of Antifungal Drugs on the Intracellular Pathogenic Fungus Candida glabrata and the Influence of Drug Resistance on The Macrophage-Fungus Interaction”

Pradeep Ramalingam, PhD
Dr. Jason Butler Lab
Title: “Reactivation of DNA Damage Response Restores Blood Stem Cell Fitness During Aging”

December 2, 2021
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Michael T. Serzan, MD
Mentor: Michael B. Atkins, MD
Title: “Renal Cell Carcinoma: Striking at the Root”

Guannan Wang, MD
Mentor: Nanette Bishopric, MD
Title: “The APOE4 Allele Aggravates Doxorubicin Cardiotoxicity in Mice”

November 16, 2021
3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Manpreet Bariana, PhD
Dr. Johannes Zakrzewski Lab
Title: “Targeting NF-κB in multiple myeloma with a small molecule inhibitor”

Jickky Sarathy, PhD
Dr. Thomas Dick Lab
Title: “Targeted protein degradation in mycobacteria”

October 27, 2020

Megan Mitchell, PhD
Dr. Olivier Loudig Lab
Title: “Optimization of a versatile, high-purity exosome purification assay for biomarker discovery”

Dereje A. Negatu, PhD
Dr. Thomas Dick Lab
Title: “Human gut microbiota metabolite targets amino acid biosynthesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis”

April 27, 2021

Kelly O’Neill, PhD
Dr. David Perlin Lab
Title: “Elucidating Molecular Heterogeneity Within the Glioblastoma Multiforme Tumor Microenvironment Using Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization (MALDI) Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI)”

Uday Ganapathy, PhD
Dr. Thomas Dick Lab
Title: “A Leucyl-tRNA Synthetase Inhibitor with Broad-Spectrum Anti-Mycobacterial Activity”

May 12, 2021

Randi Williams, PhD
Mentor: Kathryn Taylor, Ph.D. and Lucile Adams-Campbell, Ph.D.
Title: ”Multilevel Approaches to Address Cancer Disparities in the Clinical Context”

Shaymaa Bahnassy, PhD
Mentor: Rebecca B. Riggins, Ph.D.
Title: ”Subclonal Hypermutation as a Potential Mechanism of Drug Resistance in HER2+/ER+ Breast Cancer”