SEENA AJIT
DREXEL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
RAF Pain Scholar - 2010
Dr. Seena Ajit received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1999 and accepted a position as a Research Scientist in Neuroscience Discovery Research at Wyeth in 2000. Her initial research at Wyeth focused on Regulators of G-protein signaling. Subsequent research over the six-year period at Wyeth was mainly in the exploratory phase of drug discovery with a focus on the identification and characterization of novel targets for pain and on the development of novel pain therapeutics. In addition to drug discovery, significant efforts in recent years have been directed towards the use of microRNA expression profiling to identify novel regulatory mechanisms in a rat model of neuropathic pain. In November 2009, she accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. Her current research focus is aimed at understanding molecular mechanisms of pain with an emphasis on epigenetics. The role of DNA methylation, posttranslational modifications of histones and microRNAs in pain are being investigated.
STEVEN J. ALTSCHULER
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER
RAF Scholar – Class of 2008
Milton E. Cassel Scholar
Dr. Steven Altschuler received degrees in Mathematics from University of Pennsylvania and University of California, San Diego, where he completed his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Hamilton. He is currently an Associate Professor in the department of Pharmacology and the Green Center for Systems Biology at the UT Southwestern Medical Center. Prior to arriving at the UT Southwestern, Dr. Altschuler held positions both in academia and industry, including the Bauer Center for Genomics Research at Harvard University, Rosetta Informatics, Microsoft, and Princeton University. He combines his backgrounds in biology, mathematics, and engineering in his current focus on understanding cell polarity and signaling heterogeneity in cancer and metabolism. Dr. Altschuler is a UT Southwestern W. W. Caruth, Jr. Scholar in Biomedical Research and a Rita Allen Foundation Milton E. Cassel Scholar.
DIANA BAUTISTA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
RAF Pain Scholar - 2010
Diana Bautista earned her doctorate in neuroscience from Stanford University in 2002. She completed her postdoctoral work in neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Physiology with Dr. David Julius. In 2008, she joined the faculty of the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California, Berkeley. The ability to detect touch and pain rely on our somtaosensory system. Dr. Bautista’s work centers on identifying the molecules that detect touch and pain in the somatosensory system. She has developed a cell-based system to detect signals in mammalian mechanosensory neurons in response to both light touch and noxious mechanical stimuli. In addition, she is developing novel behavioral paradigms to study the in vivo role of candidate touch receptors. Her efforts of understanding mechanosensory transduction may lead to the discovery of new drug targets or therapies for the treatment of acute and chronic pain.
BEN E. BLACK
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
RAF Scholar – Class of 2009
Ben Black did a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Virginia on pathways for nuclear protein export. After a four-year postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Don Cleveland at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (on the UCSD campus in La Jolla), Ben started his own group at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is interested in how particular proteins direct accurate chromosome segregation at mitosis. In humans, the chromosomal element—the centromere—that directs this process is not defined by a particular DNA sequence. Rather, the location of the centromere is dictated by an epigenetic mark generated by one or more resident proteins. These centromeric proteins interact directly with the DNA to create a specialized chromatin compartment that is distinct from any other part of the chromosome. His work involves building centromeric chromatin from its component parts for analysis of its physical characteristics, developing biochemical assays to reconstitute steps in the process of establishing and maintaining the epigenetic mark, and using cell-based approaches to study the behavior of proteins involved in centromere inheritance and other essential aspects related to chromosome segregation at cell division. Ben enjoys spending his free time with wife Emily and sons Zachary and Henry.
RANDY BRUNO
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
RAF Scholar – Class of 2010
Randy Bruno is an Assistant Professor who studies how neurons within and between brain regions excite one another. He trained as a sensory physiologist with Daniel J. Simons at the University of Pittsburgh and subsequently in cellular physiology with Bert Sakmann at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Germany.
His laboratory presently focuses on understanding the workings of cortical circuits. The many functionally distinct regions of the cerebral cortex contain the same basic cell types, similarly organized into layers and similarly interconnected with each other. Nature appears to have evolved a single circuit motif that it reuses again and again to solve very different problems (touch, hearing, cognition, and so on). What is the connectivity within and between the cortical layers, columns, and areas? How are these connections changed by experience? How do neurons integrate input from these synaptic connections? Does abnormal cellular amplification of inputs produce an uncontrolled, debilitating spread of activity?
He addresses these questions in the whisker-barrel system, which has become a premier model for cortical circuits research. Common laboratory species, such as mice and rats, primarily explore their environments by touch, using their large facial whiskers. They palpate objects as humans do with their fingertips and have similar tactile abilities. The Bruno Laboratory studies synaptic inputs and action potential outputs of individual neurons by intracellular recording in anesthetized and awake animals. By labeling individual neurons and populations of neurons with conventional tracers and newer genetic methods, they further three-dimensionally reconstruct neurons and their synaptic connections. Using cellular imaging techniques, such as two-photon microscopy, the lab also visualizes the functional impact of synaptic inputs in multiple individual neurons simultaneously in living animals. The goal of their work is to understand not only sensory processing in cortical circuits but also how disruptions of those circuits can lead to neurological disorders.
Briana Burton
Harvard University
RAF Scholar - Class of 2011
Milton E. Cassel Scholar
Dr. Briana Burton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. She received her undergraduate degrees from Northwestern University and her Ph.D. from MIT. Dr. Burton’s work focuses on understanding how cells import nucleic acids from their environments, one of the mechanisms that allows for transfer of antibiotic resistance. Dr. Burton has also been designated the Milton E. Cassel Scholar for the 2011 class of Rita Allen Foundation Scholars. This special award honors the memory of a long-time president of the Rita Allen Foundation who passed away in 2004.
PAUL CHANG
KOCH INSTITUTE FOR INTEGRATIVE CANCER RESEARCH AT MIT
RAF Scholar – Class of 2008
Paul Chang received his Ph.D. in the lab of Tim Stearns at Stanford in 2002. While in the Stearns lab, he became interested in biological polymers and their regulation. He focused on the microtubule cytoskeleton and identified and characterized delta and epsilon-tubulin, two tubulin proteins that function in the duplication of the centrosome, the primary organizing center of microtubules in somatic cells.
After graduate school, he joined Tim Mitchison’s lab at Harvard Medical School where he was a postdoctoral fellow. There he studied the function of poly(ADP-ribose) (pADPr) in cell division and identified a requirement for pADPr in mitotic spindle assembly. pADPr is a large polymer polymerized onto acceptor proteins by a family of 17 polymerases called PARPs. The majority of the PARPs are uncharacterized.
Paul started his lab at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT in the fall of 2007. The Chang Lab studies the mechanisms of PARP and pADPr function in cells with a focus on two specific pADPr functions identified in the lab- the cytoplasmic response to stress, and regulation of microRNA activity. His lab uses cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry to address these questions.
GILBERT CHU
STANFORD MEDICAL CENTER
RAF Scholar – Class of 1988
Gilbert Chu is a Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine. He received a BA in physics from Princeton University, a PhD in theoretical physics from MIT, and an MD from Harvard Medical School. His laboratory studies how human cells recognize and respond to DNA damage. His laboratory has identified a protein that recognizes UV radiation damage and shown that it facilitates global genomic repair. His laboratory is now dissecting the pathway cells use to repair DNA double-strand breaks generated by ionizing radiation or V(D)J recombination. He invented the CHEF (contour-clamped electric field) device for separating very large DNA molecules by pulsed field electrophoresis. He and colleagues have also invented methods, including SAM (significance analysis of microarrays), for analyzing gene expression profiles, and applied these methods to predict toxicity from anticancer treatment. Dr. Chu has received the Rita Allen Foundation Award for Cancer Research and the Burroughs-Wellcome Clinical Scientist Award for Translational Research.
HILARY A. COLLER
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
RAF Scholar - Class of 2005
Milton E. Cassel Scholar
Hilary Coller is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. She received her bachelors in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Toxicology from MIT where she carried out research on the pattern of point mutations present in human DNA samples. She performed postdoctoral research at the Whitehead Institute and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Her research focuses on the molecular changes that occur when cells reversibly exit the cell cycle to become quiescent.
IAN J. DAVIS
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
RAF Scholar – Class of 2008
After completing the Medical Scientist Training Program at Northwestern University, Dr. Davis did his residency and chief residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston followed by pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Boston. Through his postdoctoral studies with David E. Fisher, Dr. Davis demonstrated that several seemingly disparate human cancers shared a dependence on the E-box binding MiT transcription factor family. These studies identified MET as a critical target in clear cell sarcoma resulting in an ongoing clinical trial. Since relocating to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill nearly four years ago, his lab has been employing genomic and computational strategies to identify chromatin alteration and transcriptional network deregulation in cancer development. He also provides primary oncological care for a small number of children with solid tumors. They serve as a reminder of the importance of research.
JEREMY DITTMAN MD PHD
WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL COLLEGE
RAF Scholar – Class of 2009
Jeremy Dittman joined the faculty at Weill Cornell Medical College as an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry in 2008. He graduated from Stanford University in 1992 where he majored in biology and physics. There he worked in the lab of Richard Aldrich studying ion channel gating. he graduated from the MD PhD program at Harvard Medical School in 2000 after working in Wade Regehr’s lab studying synaptic transmission and the role of presynaptic calcium. In pursuit of a more detailed molecular picture of the events underlie neurotransmission, he joined Josh Kaplan’s lab at UC Berkeley and switched from rodent brains to worms. During his postdoc, he combined quantitative imaging with molecular genetics in C. elegans as a model system for studying synaptic transmission. Current work in his lab explores the molecular mechanisms that underlie synaptic vesicle fusion and endocytosis. In particular, the lab has focused on complexin, a molecule thought to play a crucial but still mysterious role in synaptic vesicle fusion. The lab is also interested in developing techniques for imaging the dynamics of synaptic proteins in living synapses.
sites.google.com/site/dittmanlabhomepage
MAITREYA DUNHAM
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
RAF Scholar – Class of 2010
Maitreya Dunham grew up in rural Tennessee. She received a Biology degree from MIT before moving to Stanford University for graduate school. For her Ph.D. in Genetics, she worked with David Botstein using genomic technologies to characterize DNA rearrangements in laboratory evolved yeast cultures. She continued to study genome evolution, using both experimental and comparative genomics approaches, in her own lab at Princeton University as one of the first Lewis-Sigler Fellows, where she also participated in the development of a new Integrated Science curriculum. Her lab at the University of Washington studies how gene and chromosome copy number changes affect cell growth and evolution.
http://dunham.gs.washington.edu
ELSA R. FLORES
U.T. M.D. ANDERSON CANCER CENTER
RAF Scholar - Class of 2005
Dr. Flores received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from M.I.T. and her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She did a postdoctoral fellowship sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America in Dr. Tyler Jacks’ laboratory at M.I.T. In his lab and in collaboration with Dr. Frank McKeon’s lab at Harvard, she found that p63 and p73 are required for p53 dependent apoptosis in response to DNA damage and that p63 and p73 are tumor suppressor genes. Dr. Flores is currently an Assistant Professor at U.T. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. Recent work in her laboratory includes deciphering the functions of the TA and DN isoforms of p63 and p73 in multiple biological processes using conditional knock out mouse models. Dr. Flores is a scholar of the American Cancer Society, The Rita Allen Foundation, and the V Foundation for Cancer Research.
ADRIAN R. FERRE-D’AMARE
FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER
RAF Scholar – Class of 2001
Adrian R. Ferré-D'Amaré earned his Ph.D. at The Rockefeller University under the guidance of Prof. Stephen Burley. He carried out post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Prof. Jennifer Doudna at Yale University as a Jane Coffin Childs Fellow. In 1999, he joined the faculty of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, USA, where he is currently Full Member. He is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and an Affiliate Associate Professor of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington. Past distinctions include selection as a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar (2001-2003) and as a Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research by the W.M. Keck Foundation (2003-2008). He received the Eli Lilly & Co. Research Award of the American Society for Microbiology in 2004.
AARON D. GITLER
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
RAF Scholar – Class of 2008
Aaron Gitler majored in biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University and received a B.S. degree in 2000. He earned a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology at the University of Pennsylvania in 2004, where he completed thesis research with Dr. Jonathan Epstein. His thesis project involved studying the role of the type 1 neurofibromatosis gene in mouse heart development. In a second project, he also identified a novel signaling pathway, involving sempahorin ligands and plexin receptors, that functioned in endothelial cells to guide blood vessel and heart patterning. Disrupting this signaling pathway in mouse resulted in cardiac anomalies similar to those seen in human congenital heart disease.
For his postdoctoral studies, he changed fields completely and joined the laboratory of Dr. Susan Lindquist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA. Here he used yeast as a model system to study mechanisms of human neurodegenerative diseases that are associated with protein misfolding, such as Parkinson’s disease. Together with colleagues in the Lindquist lab, he performed high-throughput yeast genetic screens to identify modifiers of toxicity associated with the accumulation of misfolded human disease proteins.
In 2007, he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, as an assistant professor in the department of cell and developmental biology. He continues to use yeast genetics to define mechanisms of neurodegenerative disease and has now focused on the motor neuron disease ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease). This work has led him to extend his findings in yeast to human genetics and, together with his colleagues at PENN, he has recently discovered a novel genetic risk factor for ALS. In the future, he will continue to combine yeast genetic screens and human genetics, in an effort to define new human disease genes and to elucidate mechanisms of human neurodegenerative diseases.
YUKIKO GODA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO & MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
RAF Scholar – Class of 2000
Yukiko Goda obtained her BSc from University of Toronto in Biochemistry and Chemistry, and carried out her PhD work with Suzanne Pfeffer in the Biochemistry Department at Stanford University, studying mechanisms of intracellular membrane trafficking. Her interests then turned to Neuroscience, and after completing her postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute in the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory with Charles Stevens, she joined the Division of Biology, University of California, San Diego in 1997. She joined the MRC Cell Biology Unit and LMCB at University College London in 2002. Research efforts in her laboratory were directed towards delineating the cellular and the molecular basis for regulating synaptic connectivity and function. In May 2011, she relocated to take up a position as a senior team leader at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan.
Elissa Hallem
University of California, Los Angeles
RAF Scholar - Class of 2011
Dr. Elissa Hallem joined the faculty of the Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Department at University of California, Los Angeles in 2011. She received her B.A. in Biology and Chemistry from Williams College and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Yale University. Dr. Hallem’s research focuses on the neural basis of host-seeking behavior in parasitic nematodes (roundworms), which cause extensive morbidity and mortality worldwide. A better understanding of how parasites find and infect their hosts may lead to the development of new strategies for preventing infections.STEPHEN L. HAUSER
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, HARVARD
RAF Scholar – Class of 1988
Stephen L. Hauser, M.D. is the Robert A. Fishman Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at UCSF. He is a graduate of MIT (Phi Beta Kappa) and Harvard Medical School (Magna Cum Laude). He trained in internal medicine at the New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center, in neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and in immunology at Harvard Medical School and the Institute Pasteur in Paris, France, and was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School before moving to UCSF.
A neuroimmunologist, Dr. Hauser’s research has advanced our understanding of the genetic basis, immune mechanisms, and treatment of multiple sclerosis. Dr. Hauser is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Physicians, a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (currently Chair of the Committee on Gulf War and Health Outcomes), an editor of the textbook Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, and editor-in-chief of Annals of Neurology. He is a former President of the American Neurological Association and President of the Medical Staff at UCSF. He also serves on several scientific advisory boards for nonprofit organizations. Dr. Hauser has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the Jacob Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award and the John Dystel Prize for Multiple Sclerosis Research. In April 2010 Dr. Hauser was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues charged with advising the President on issues that may emerge from advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology.
MICHAEL T. HEMANN
Latham Family Career Development Assistant Professor of Biology
Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT
RAF Scholar – Class of 2007
Michael Hemann studies the mechanisms that regulate the way tumors respond to anti-cancer therapy. His lab has developed systems to acutely disrupt gene function, both in normal cells and in tumors in mammalian systems, and has used this approach to investigate the role of individual genes in modulating therapeutic outcome. The work has led to the identification of key determinants of cancer cells’ response to front-line chemotherapeutics.
Hemann and his group have subsequently expanded this approach to assess the role of thousands of cancer-relevant genes in the response of diverse tumor types to a wide array of chemotherapeutics. Results from this work will better inform strategies to customize anti-cancer therapies to the specific constellation of genetic alterations present in a given tumor. In doing so, this research seeks to change the current clinical paradigm from the use of generically applied drugs to the development and application of personalized anti-cancer therapy.
Michael Hemann earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Wesleyan University. He completed his Ph.D. in Carol Greider’s laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in 2001, and went on to conduct postdoctoral work with Scott Lowe at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory before going to MIT to work on cancer.
RAF Scholar – Class of 2007
Dr. Kim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics at Yale University. He received his B.A. from Reed College and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Kim is interested in new methods for identifying and characterizing other regulatory elements. His laboratory combines traditional molecular and biochemical methods with bioinformatics and high-throughput technologies to analyze elements such as: high throughput sequencing, custom DNA microarrays, and genomic libraries. Current research involves looking at chromatin domains and insulator function in cancers.
Rahul Kohli
University of Pennsylvania
RAF Scholar- Class of 2011
Dr. Rahul Kohli started his independent research group at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, where he is on the faculty of the Department of Medicine and the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. He conducted his graduate work at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kohli’s lab is interested in understanding the added layer of complexity that comes with the action of DNA modifying enzymes. Understanding these DNA modifying enzymes has implications for immune defense and stem cell pluripotency.
Michael Lin
Stanford University
RAF Scholar - Class of 2011
Dr. Michael Lin is an assistant professor of pediatrics and bioengineering at Stanford University. He studied biochemistry at Harvard University, receiving his bachelor's degree summa cum laude, and then performed research as a Ph.D. student at Harvard Medical School. After completing medical school at UCLA, Dr. Lin began pursuing his current research, which combines development of molecular reporters and tools with the study of mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in neuronal networks. Information processing in the central nervous system is primarily mediated through synaptic connections between neurons, and this connectivity in turn defines how large ensembles of neurons may coordinate network output to execute complex sensory and motor functions.
JOHSUA T. MENDELL
JOHNS HOPKINS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
RAF Scholar – Class of 2006
Dr. Joshua Mendell completed his undergraduate education in Biology at Cornell University in 1996 where he graduated with honors and was awarded membership to Phi Beta Kappa. He then joined the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was awarded an M.D.-Ph.D. degree in 2003. Josh further completed a year of postdoctoral research with Hal Dietz at Johns Hopkins. During his doctoral and post-doctoral training, Josh studied nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), a ubiquitous pathway in eukaryotic cells through which messenger RNAs containing premature translation termination codons are targeted for degradation. He made important contributions to this field including the identification and functional characterization of core mammalian components of the NMD pathway and the demonstration that mammalian NMD functions not only as a quality control checkpoint during gene expression, but more broadly as a physiologic regulator of thousands of natural transcripts. After starting his independent research group at Johns Hopkins in 2004, Josh switched his focus to the study of microRNA (miRNA) regulation and function in normal physiology and disease. His laboratory provided one of the first demonstrations that miRNAs are functional components of critical oncogenic and tumor suppressor pathways and his group has identified specific miRNAs with potent pro- and anti-tumorigenic activities. The Mendell laboratory was also one of the first to show that due to their ability to strongly inhibit tumorigenesis, select miRNAs represent potent and non-toxic anti-cancer therapeutic agents when delivered systemically. The Mendell laboratory has also characterized novel mechanisms of miRNA regulation, including the unique demonstration that miRNA stability and intracellular trafficking can be regulated in a sequence-specified manner. For these efforts, Josh has been the recipient of several prestigious awards including being named a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar and a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar. He was named the Outstanding Young Scientist in the State of Maryland by the Maryland Academy of Sciences in 2007 and in 2009 was appointed to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as an Early Career Scientist. In 2010, Josh received the Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research Award from the American Association of Cancer Research.
MING LI
MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER
RAF Scholar – Class of 2008
Like many scientists, curiosity was Ming Li’s original motivation for entering the world of science. After obtaining a Ph.D. degree in Biological Sciences at Columbia University, Ming joined Richard Flavell’s lab at Yale University as a postdoctoral fellow to study T lymphocyte regulation. During his stay at Yale, Ming had done pioneering work with genetically modified mouse models to reveal a remarkably potent and pleiotropic function of the cytokine TGF-beta1 in the control of T cell responses. In 2007, Ming started his lab at MSKCC to continue his study of immune regulation with an emphasis on the evolutionarily ancient signaling modules such as TGF-beta/TGF-beta receptor and Akt/Foxo. Ming’s lab is also interested in determining how immune dysregulation affects the diseased states including infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. Ming Li was named as a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar in 2008.
Axel Nimmerjahn
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
RAF Scholar - Class of 2011
Dr. Axel Nimmerjahn is an assistant professor in the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center and the current Richard Allan Barry Developmental Chair. He completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research/University of Heidelberg, Germany. He currently studies an enigmatic set of cells called glia, which are critically involved in many injuries and diseases including spinal-cord injury, glioma, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alexander’s disease. Work in Dr. Nimmerjahn’s lab is centered on investigating the role of glial cells in information processing, regulation of vascular dynamics, and stroke.
EMMANUELLE A. PASSEGUÉ
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
RAF Scholar – Class of 2008
Dr. Emmanuelle Passegué is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology with the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Her research focus on deciphering the mechanisms controlling hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) functions during normal hematopoiesis and in hematological malignancies. In particular, she is using mouse models of myeloid leukemia to investigate leukemia-initiating stem cells formation and functions. Dr. Passegué’s current studies center on understanding the fundamental properties of the HSC compartment that can be co-opted by oncogenic events to either directly transform HSCs or to provide aberrant self-renewal activity to more committed cells. Her work is expanding our understanding of the biology of normal and leukemic stem cells, and could lead to new treatment for human hematological malignancies.
Dr. Passegué earned her Ph.D. degree from the University Paris XI, France. She first trained as a mouse geneticist at the Institute for Molecular pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria, where she worked with Dr. Erwin Wagner, and then as a stem cell biologist at Stanford University, where she worked with Dr. Irving Weissman. She joined the UCSF faculty in 2006.
STEVEN A. PRESCOTT
University of Pittsburgh
RAF Pain Scholar - 2009
Trained as a clinician, experimentalist, and theoretician, Steve Prescott uses a multidisciplinary approach to uncover how the nervous system processes pain-related sensory information and how that processing becomes deranged following nerve injury, thus producing neuropathic pain. Particular emphasis is placed on the nonlinear properties of neurons and neural networks, which are analyzed using mathematical tools derived from dynamical systems theory. One area of focus is the superficial dorsal horn (SDH) of the spinal cord, which is a critical early stage of the pain pathway. Using calcium imaging and electrophysiology, his lab is characterizing the structure and function of SDH neural circuitry. Those data will be used to build computational models that explain how neural information is normally processed by the SDH, and how that processing is disrupted in chronic pain states.
Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research
http://www.prescottlab.neurobio.pitt.edu/
THEODORE J. PRICE
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA MEDICAL SCHOOL
RAF Pain Scholar - 2009
Dr. Price got his start in the neurosciences as an undergraduate at The University of Texas at Dallas where he worked in the laboratory of Alice O’Toole on developing models of human face perception. He then moved onto The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio for his Ph.D. studies where he was introduced to pain neuroscience and worked under Christopher Flores and Kenneth Hargreaves on endogenous cannabinoid interactions with TRP channels. In 2004 Dr. Price joined the laboratory of Fernando Cervero at McGill University working on spinal GABAergic processing and translation control of nociceptive plasticity. In 2006 he received his first grant as a PI from The American Pain Society which allowed him to further develop work on translation control using the mouse model of fragile X syndrome. Dr. Price joined the Department of Pharmacology at The University of Arizona in 2007. His laboratory is focused on understanding how translation regulation contributes to chronic pain states and developing targets associated with translation control as novel classes of pain therapeutics. They are currently investigating the mTOR and ERK pathways as generators of neuropathic and post-surgical pain and AMP Kinase activators as potential novel therapeutics for treating these pain states.
DAVID PROBER
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
RAF Scholar - Class of 2010
Milton E. Cassel Scholar
David Prober received his Ph.D. from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington in 2002. His thesis research in Bruce Edgar’s lab revealed that the proto-oncogenes Ras and Myc promote cell growth, rather than cell proliferation, in developing tissues. He performed his postdoctoral research in Alex Schier’s lab at the Skirball Institute and Harvard University, where he established zebrafish as a model to study sleep. In 2009, he joined the faculty of the Biology Division at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Prober’s research exploits the transparency and genetic amenability of zebrafish to explore genetic and neuronal mechanisms that are thought to regulate sleep in other organisms, as well as to identify new genes, neurons and small molecules that regulate sleep and wake states.
SAMARA RECK-PETERSON
HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
RAF Scholar – Class of 2009
Milton E. Cassel Scholar
Samara Reck-Peterson joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor of Cell Biology in 2007. Reck-Peterson received her Ph.D. from Yale University, where she discovered her fascination for molecular motors. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Francisco working with Ron Vale, Reck-Peterson continued her studies of molecular motors, turning to the frontier in the field, dynein, a motor that moves cellular organelles, chromosomes, RNAs and proteins along microtubule tracks. Proper transport of these cargoes is essential for cell division, migration and differentiation. Defects in these processes can lead to disease in humans, the best documented of which are neurodegenerative or neural developmental diseases. Reck-Peterson’s research group uses a number of tools, including high precision single molecule fluorescence microscopy, to understand how the dynein motor moves. Current work in the Reck-Peterson lab is directed towards a comprehensive understanding of the motile properties of this complex and essential molecular motor. Other work in the lab is focused on understanding how microtubule-based cargo transport is controlled spatially and temporally. The long term goal of the group is to understand, at the molecular level, how microtubules and their motors function in normal cells, and what can go wrong in disease states. Reck-Peterson was named a Rita Allen Milton Cassel scholar in 2009 and a NIH Director’s New Innovator Award recipient in 2008.
PETER W. REDDIEN
MIT-Whitehead Institute
RAF Scholar – Class of 2006
Milton E. Cassel Scholar
Peter Reddien, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the department of biology at MIT and a member of the Whitehead Institute. He received his Ph.D. in 2002 from MIT, where he worked in the laboratory of Dr. H. Robert Horvitz on programmed cell death in C. elegans. His work now focuses on regeneration, using planarian flatworms as a model system. He began this work as a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado at the University of Utah Medical School. He performed the first RNA interference-based screen in planarians, helping to establish planarians as a new molecular genetic system. Planarians can regenerate any missing part of their body, and Dr. Reddien’s laboratory studies genes required for stem cell function in regeneration. This work has led to the discovery of stem cell regulatory genes and genes that promote regeneration. Dr. Reddien is also a recipient of a Distinguished Young Scholar Award from the W.M. Keck Foundation and a recipient of scholar awards from the Searle Foundation, the Smith Family Foundation, and The Rita Allen Foundation. Dr. Reddien holds a Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Career Development Professorship at MIT and most recently has been selected as an Early Career Scientist of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Edgar Romero-Sandoval
Dartmouth Hitchcock
RAF Pain Relief Scholar - 2011
Dr. Edgar Romero-Sandavol is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology & Toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School. He received his M.D. from Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (Centro Universitario de Occidente, Quetzaltenango) and his Ph.D. from Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), Spain. Currently, Dr. Romero-Sandovol is studying the molecular mechanisms of spinal phosphatases in the generation and maintenance of chronic pain, and in the transition from acute to chronic pain.
AGATA SMOGORZEWSKA
ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY
RAF scholar – Class of 2010
Dr. Smogorzewska received her B.S. in molecular biology and biochemistry from the University of Southern California in 1995, her Ph.D. from Rockefeller University in 2002 and her M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College in 2003. Following a residency in clinical pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital, she joined Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Stephen Elledge. She joined Rockefeller University as an assistant professor in 2009. Her current research aims to elucidate pathways that prevent cancer development with a specific focus on those that repair DNA. In particular she is interested how those pathways fail in patients with a rare bone marrow failure and cancer predisposition disorder called Fanconi Anemia.
http://www.rockefeller.edu/labheads/smogorzewska/
DANIEL B. STETSON
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
RAF Scholar – Class of 2009
Dan Stetson graduated from Duke University in 1997 and received his PhD in 2002 from the University of California, San Francisco. After completing postdoctoral work at Yale University, he joined the faculty of the University of Washington Department of Immunology in May 2008.
Research in the Stetson lab focuses on how cells detect and respond to viral infection. All organisms have viral pathogens, and an ancient and fundamental mechanism for detecting viral infection makes use of sensors that recognize viral nucleic acids. These sensors are essential for triggering innate and adaptive immune responses to infection and vaccination, yet they also can cause severe autoimmune disease when inappropriately activated. We are particularly interested in a pathway that detects DNA within cells and activates a potent antiviral response. Current areas of research include defining the sensors and signaling pathways activated by intracellular DNA, exploring how dysregulated nucleic acid metabolism can trigger this pathway, and characterizing a new mouse model of lethal autoimmunity caused by antiviral sensors.
BRUCE STILLMAN
COLD SPRING HARBOR
RAF Scholar – Class of 1983
Dr. Bruce Stillman is President of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. A native of Australia, he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree with honors at The University of Sydney and a Ph.D. from the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University. He then moved to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 1979 and has been at the Laboratory ever since, being promoted to the scientific staff in 1981. Dr. Stillman has been Director of the Cancer Center at Cold Spring Harbor since 1992, a position he still holds. In 1994, he succeeded Nobel Laureate Dr. James D. Watson as Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and was appointed President in 2003.
Dr. Stillman’s research focuses on how chromosomes are duplicated in cells, a process that ensures accurate inheritance of genetic material from one generation to the next.
For his research accomplishments, Dr. Stillman has received a number of honors including election as a Fellow of The Royal Society, to the US National Academy of Sciences, and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1994, Dr. Stillman was awarded the Julian Wells Medal (Australia) and in 1999 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for service to scientific research in the field of molecular biology. In 2004, Dr. Stillman and Dr. Thomas Kelly of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center were awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Prize by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. In 2006 Dr. Stillman received the Basic Science award from the Society of Surgical Oncology. In 2010, Drs. Stillman and Kelly received the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University. Dr. Stillman has received five honorary doctorates.
Dr. Stillman is a member of the Medical Advisory Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and advises a number of other research organizations, including the M.I.T. Cancer Center, the Lewis-Sigler Institute of Princeton University and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia. He was chair of the Board of Scientific Councilors of the National Cancer Institute and former vice-chair of the National Cancer Policy Board. He currently serves on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute and as a member of the Board of Life Sciences of the US National Research Council.
Yuanxiang Tao
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
RAF Pain Relief Scholar - 2011
Dr. Yuanxiang Tao received his Ph.D. from Shanghai Brain Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and completed his postdoctoral work at the University of Virginia. In 1999, he joined the faculty of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The long-term goal of his research is to investigate novel molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie chronic pain and to apply the findings in prevention and/or treatment of this disorder.
SOHAIL TAVAZOIE
ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY
RAF Scholar – Class of 2009
Dr. Tavazoie received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, his Ph.D. from Harvard University and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Following a residency and internship in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, he joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as a clinical fellow in 2005 and became a research fellow in medical oncology in 2006. He joined Rockefeller as an assistant professor in 2009.
In 2009, Dr. Tavazoie was the recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award and American Society of Clinical Oncology and American Association for Cancer Research Young Investigator Awards. He was also named a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, a Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research Scholar, a Sinsheimer Foundation Scholar and he received an Emerald Foundation Young Investigator Award. He has also received a Whitman Scholarship in Health Sciences and Technology from Harvard-MIT.
LLOYD C. TROTMAN
COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY
RAF Scholar – Class of 2007
Lloyd Trotman joined the faculty of CSHL in 2007, and conducts research on the tumor suppressor genes responsible for the initiation and progression of prostate cancer. His experiments in mouse models of this disease originally conducted at MSKCC demonstrated an unexpected hierarchy between two of the most frequently targeted tumor suppressor genes of prostate cancer, PTEN and p53. His lab is studying mechanisms of cooperation between different tumor suppressors as well as the regulation of PTEN protein in cancer. His collaborative work with clinicians at MSKCC is aimed at dissecting the genetic pathways that give rise to metastatic prostate cancer in order to develop individual molecular-based patient prognosis and treatment options. Their recent results show that aggressive progression of prostate cancer in their genetically modified mice closely parallel the events in human metastatic prostate cancer and lay the foundation for pre-clinical models for therapy that target the lethal forms of this disease.
LUIS P. VILLARREAL
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
RAF Scholar – Class of 1983
Dr. Luis P. Villarreal received his Ph.D. Degree in biology from University of California at San Diego in 1975 working on molecular biology of negative strand viruses and mechanisms of defective mediated persistence with Dr. John J. Holland. Following postdoctoral training at Stanford University Department of Biochemistry working on SV40 transcription with Dr. Paul Berg, he joined the faculty of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. There he received several awards for research career support. At Colorado, he worked on mouse polyomavirus and was first to establish the genetic parameters that control species and tissue specificity of virus DNA replication. In addition, he was first to develop DNA hybridization methods for the analysis of in vivo mouse infections and has gone on to become one of the world experts on in vivo replication of polyomavirus. Also, he was first to establish the in vivo use of DNA injection to study virus replication and host immunity. Since 1985 he has been at the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at University of California at Irvine. Here he became Professor and more recently Director of the Center for Virus Research. His current interest is to understand the link of virus replication to host cell differentiation in vivo and he has published some studies that challenge long accepted views of what makes tissues permissive to virus replication. More recently, he has become interested in long-term biological implications of persistent virus infection and has proposed some evolutionary models that challenge our current view on virus host interactions and its importance for host evolution. He has been a member of numerous grant review panels and has been on the editorial staff of various virus-based journals.
Past research includes work on polyomavirus, papilloma, the role of parvoviruses in cancer treatment, cervical cancer prevention and vaccine development, and adenoviral vectors relating to gene therapy for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
CHRISTOPHER WALSH
HARVARD MEDICAL
RAF Scholar – Class of 1993
Dr. Christopher Walsh completed his B.S. degree at Bucknell University in chemistry and his MD (1985) and PhD (1983) in neurobiology at the University of Chicago. After completing his residencies at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Walsh became a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. During his fellowship, he performed some of the first direct studies of cell lineage and cell migration in the developing cortex of mammals. Dr. Walsh established his own lab in 1993, the goal of which is to identify and analyze the genes that regulate the development and normal function of the human cerebral cortex. Most of the genetic work of the lab has benefited from worldwide collaborations, especially with physicians in countries where marriage between cousins is common because this creates genetic effects that greatly simplify the identification of rare, recessive mutations.
As Chief of the Genetics Division at Children's Hospital Boston, Dr. Walsh is working to leverage his lab's gene discovery efforts to harness new technology to improve genetic diagnosis in the clinical setting, as well as to collaborate with other members of the Division to develop improved treatments for children with neurological disorders.
Since establishing his lab in 1993, Dr. Walsh has been fortunate to receive a number of awards, including the Derek Denny-Brown Award (American Neurological Association), Dreiffus-Penry Epilepsy Award (American Academy of Neurology), Jacob Javits Distinguished Investigator Award (National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke), Epilepsy Research Award (American Epilepsy Society), and Jacoby Research Award (American Neurological Association). In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Walsh is Bullard Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Genetics at Children's Hospital Boston, Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Children's Hospital Boston, and the former Director of the Harvard-MIT MD-PhD Program.
YE ZHENG
SALK INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICAL STUDIES
RAF Scholar -- Class of 2010
Dr. Ye Zheng earned his B.S. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Peking University in Beijing, China, and his Ph.D. degree in Biological Sciences from Columbia University in New York. In his Ph.D. study, Dr. Zheng dissected the role of transcription factor NF-kB in T cell activation and apoptosis. He was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship sponsored by Cancer Research Institute to conduct research in Dr. Alexander Rudensky’s lab at University of Washington in Seattle, where he studied the mechanism of Foxp3 controlled regulatory T cell development and function. After a brief sojourn as a research scholar at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, he joined the Salk Institute for Biological Studies as an assistant professor in 2009. The research in Dr. Zheng’s lab is focused on regulatory T cells, a subset of T lymphocytes that play a pivotal role in the maintenance of immune system homeostasis and suppressing excessive immune response. The long-term goal of his lab is to search for novel ways to enhance or attenuate Treg activity, and to apply these findings in treatment of autoimmune diseases, improvement of organ transplant survival, and enhancement of anti-tumor immunity.
MARK J. ZYLKA
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
RAF Scholar – Class of 2007
Milton E. Cassel Scholar
Dr. Mark Zylka received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Virginia Tech and his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Harvard. He then did his postdoctoral work at Caltech in Dr. David Anderson’s laboratory. While at Caltech, Dr. Zylka co-discovered a large family of G protein-coupled receptors called Mrgprs that are exclusively found in human and mouse nociceptive (pain-sensing) neurons. These receptors are now being targeted by several pharmaceutical companies as possible therapeutics for pain. Dr. Zylka’s lab at UNC is heavily focused on identifying and studying new molecules for the treatment of chronic pain. Recently, his lab found that Prostatic Acid Phosphatase (PAP) was expressed in pain-sensing neurons and has potent and long-lasting analgesic effects in animal models of chronic pain. In fact, PAP analgesia outlasts morphine analgesia by days. PAP works by generating adenosine, a compound with clinically-validated analgesic properties in humans. Future studies are aimed at using recombinant PAP protein to treat pain in humans, development of small molecule PAP mimetics and characterization of additional naturally-occurring enzymes with analgesic properties.