Our Faculty

Nancy Zeleznik-Le, PhD

Chair; Professor

Cancer Biology; Medicine

Research Interests:

MLL leukemias
Hematopoiesis
Chromatin-mediated gene regulation and epigenetics

Maurizio Bocchetta, PhD

Associate Professor

Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

OTUD6B deubiquitinase
MYC oncogene
Lung adenocarcinoma

Mitchell F. Denning, PhD

Associate Dean for Graduate Education;

Professor Cancer Biology;

Molecular Pharmacology & Neuroscience

Research Interests:

Keratinocyte and melanocyte biology
Ultraviolet radiation induced skin carcinogenesis
Protein kinase C signaling

Sean W. Fanning, PhD

Assistant Professor

Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

Breast cancer
Nuclear receptors
Drug resistance
Structure-based drug discovery

Kimberly E. Foreman, PhD

Associate Professor

Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

Research training
Medical education
Education outcomes

Irida Kastrati, PhD

Assistant Professor, Cancer Biology
Research Interests:

Breast cancer
Selenoproteins
Racial disparity
Therapy targets in therapy resistance and recurrence
Drug development

Steven Kregel, PhD

Assistant Professor

Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

Prostate cancer and urologic research
Androgen receptor signaling
Hormone therapies and resistance
Tumor immune microenvironment

Phong T. Le, PhD

Professor

Microbiology & Immunology; Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

T-cell Development
Thymic epithelial cell biology
Exosomes

Michael Nishimura, PhD

Professor, Surgical Research; Cancer Biology

Associate Director, Cancer Center Translational Research

Program Director, Immunologic Therapeutics

Research Interests:

Cancer immunology
T cell receptor genetics, structure and function
Chimeric antigen receptor functions

Clodia Osipo, PhD

Professor

Cancer Biology; Microbiology & Immunology

Research Interests:

Breast cancer
Cancer stem cells
Notch signaling

Wei Qiu, PhD

Professor

Cancer Biology; Surgical Research

Research Interests:

Hepatocellular carcinoma
Tumor cell signaling pathways
Mechanisms of therapeutic resistance in HCC
Alcoholic liver disease

Nan Sethakorn, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor

Hematology/Oncology; Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

Non-small cell lung cancer
Bone metastases
Tumor microenvironment
Resistance to targeted therapies

Ali Vaziri-Gohar, PHD

Assistant Professor

Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

Pancreatic cancer
Metabolic vulnerabilities in tumor microenvironment
Metabolic dependencies of gene regulation
Development of novel targeted therapies
Drug resistance

Derek Wainwright, PhD

Associate Professor, Depts. of Cancer Biology (Primary) and Neurological Surgery (Adjunct)

Scientific Director, Brain Tumor Research

Program Leader, Cancer Biology & Therapeutics, Cardinal Berrnadin Cancer Center

Research Interests:

Glioblastoma
Cancer immunology and immunotherapy
Aging and cancer
Neuroimmunology
Mechanisms of resistance to therapy for cancer

Jiwang Zhang, MD, PhD

Professor

Cancer Biology: Radiation Oncology

Research Interests:

Hematopoiesis
Stem cell self-renewal
Bone marrow microenvironment
Cell signaling

Manuel Diaz MD

Professor Emeritus

Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

MLL and MLL fusion proteins
Leukemogenesis