Current Clinical Scholars
Juan Angulo-Lozano, MD
Mentor: Jeffrey V. Ravetch, MD, PhD
Lab: Leonard Wagner Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Immunology
Email: jangulo@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Angulo-Lozano’s research interest is investigating the immunologic interactions and tumor microenvironment changes in prostate and bladder cancer and their response to different antibody-based therapies (ABT). His research project will focus on testing novel immunotherapies and combinations for the treatment of early-stage bladder cancers and how the Fc-domain of ABTs affects tumor immunity.
Bio: Dr. Angulo-Lozano received his MD from the Universidad Anahuac Norte in Mexico City. He previously was a postdoctoral research associate in the Leonard Wagner Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Immunology.
Tamar Berger, MD
Mentor: Agata Smogorzewska, MD, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Genome Maintenance
Email: tberger@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Berger’s research interests are the epidemiology of hematological malignancies and biomarkers characterization for early cancer detection.
Current Research Project Title: Detection of Pre-Malignant Changes in Fanconi anemia Mucosa
Bio: Dr. Berger received her MD and MHA from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Be’er Sheva, Israel. Dr. Berger completed her internal medicine residency and Hematology fellowship at Rabin Medical Center in Israel. Dr. Berger served as a senior Hemato-oncologist at Rabin Medical Center, Davidoff Cancer Center, focusing on treating patients with plasma cell disorders.
Amichai Berkovitz, MD
Mentor: Sanford Simon, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Cellular Biophysics
Email: aberkovitz@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Berkovitz’s research interest is fibrolamellar carcinoma, a rare liver disease that affects children, adolescents, and young adults.
Current Research Project Title: Genome-Wide Association Studies in Fibrolamellar Carcinoma
Bio: Dr. Berkovitz received his MD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, where he also completed his family medicine residency. Dr. Berkovitz will focus on performing a genome-wide association study for fibrolamellar carcinoma, probing for germline genomic variance associated with disease progression, outcome, and response to therapeutics. He will also be mining patient clinical data and analyzing associations of demographic, clinical, and therapeutic variables with better survival.
Barbara Bosch, MD, PhD
Mentors: Seth A. Darst, PhD and Elizabeth Campbell, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics
Email: bbosch@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Bosch’s research interest is microbiology, particularly mycobacteria, focusing on microbial physiology and genetics. Her research project aims to visualize and understand the regulation of the transcriptional process using a combination of genetic, biochemical, and structural techniques.
Current Research Project Title: Assessing Novel Compounds against Mycobacterial Pathogens within Infected Human Cacrophages
Bio: Dr. Bosch received her MD from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and PhD from Rockefeller University. She completed the junior years of pediatric residency at the University Hospitals Louvain in Belgium.
Nicole Cruz, MD
Mentor: Robert G. Roeder, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Email: ncruz01@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Cruz’s research focus is to elucidate the epigenetic basis of the oncogenic function of histone methyl transferase KMT2D in MLL-AF9 leukemia.
Current Research Project Title: Understanding the Role PPAR-Gamma in the Biology of Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Bio: Dr. Cruz received her MD from San Juan Bautista School of Medicine, Puerto Rico. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency and Hematology & Oncology Fellowship at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medicine.
Nicolas Gomez Banoy, MD
Mentor: Paul Cohen, MD, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism
Email: rkimani@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Gomez Banoy’s research interest is focused on unraveling the mechanisms behind obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. His current research project will focus on understanding the genetic and pharmacologic determinants of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in adult humans, with the ultimate goal of harnessing thermogenic adipocytes to treat cardiometabolic diseases.
Current Research Project Title: Genetic Determinants of Brown Adipose Tissue Activity
Bio: Dr. Gomez Banoy received his MD from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, Colombia. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr James Lo at Weill Cornell Medicine studying pancreatic islet biology. Dr. Gomez Banoy completed his Internal Medicine residency at Weill Cornell Medicine/New York Presbyterian Hospital. He is currently an Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism fellow at the joint Weill Cornell Medicine/Memorial Sloan Kettering program.
Xiaojing Huang, MD, PhD
Mentor: Paul Cohen, MD, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism
Email: xhuang01@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Huang’s research interests are systems biology and the interaction between adipose tissue and cancer.
Current Research Project Title: Proteomic Signatures of Response to Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Metastatic Sarcoma
Bio: Dr. Huang received her MD and PhD from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She completed an internal medicine internship at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and a radiation oncology residency at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Rachel W. Kimani, DNP
Mentor: Erich D. Jarvis, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language
Email: rkimani@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Kimani’s research interest focuses on how mental and physical comorbidity influences people’s health trajectories, and the implications of the complex mix on healthcare.
Current Research ProjectTitle: Racism-based Stress Injury and Biomarkers of Stress: A Feasibility and Correlation study
Bio: Dr. Kimani received her DNP from the State University of New York at Binghamton. Dr. Kimani will establish biological, psychological, and social factors that function as predictors, mediators, and correlates of race-based stress and trauma response and will explore possible interventions to decrease the associated negative symptoms.
Matthew Kudelka, MD, PhD
Mentor: Elaine Fuchs, PhD
Lab: Robin Chemers Neustein Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development
Email: mkudelka@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Kudelka’s research interest is studying post-translational modifications in health and disease and developing novel cancer therapies..
Current Research Project Title: Anti-glycan Antibody Responses to Immunotherapy in Melanoma
Bio: Dr. Kudelka received his MD and PhD from the Emory University School of Medicine, and completed his internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell. Dr. Kudelka is currently doing his Medical Oncology/Research Fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Emre Mordeniz, MD
Mentors: Winrich Freiwald, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Neural Systems
Email: emordeniz@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Mordeniz’s research interest is understanding the neural mechanisms of sensory-motor transformation, mirror-neuron systems, and high-level social information processing in primate and human brains.
Current Research Project Title: Embodied Facial Motion Recognition: The Connectome of pSTS
Bio: Dr. Mordeniz received his MD from the Istanbul University Istanbul Faculty of Medicine in Turkey. Dr. Mordeniz is focusing on the neurophysiology and connectome of the middle dorsal face area that is selective for naturalistic facial motion. Bringing together the electrophysiology data in non-human primates and fMRI data in human volunteers, he aims to shed light on the neuropathology of social perceptual deficits in autism and schizophrenia.
Ryan Q. Notti, MD, PhD
Mentors: Thomas Walz, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Molecular Electron Microscopy
Email: rnotti@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Notti’s research interest is studying structural biochemical approaches to approach the fundamental question in oncology and design new therapeutics with a focus on the treatment of sarcomas.
Current Research Project Title: A Pilot Study of Molecular Dynamics Simulation for the Prediction of Rare T-Cell Receptor Variant Phenotypes
Bio: Dr. Notti received his MD from Weill Cornell Medical College and PhD from Rockefeller University. Dr. Notti completed his internal medicine residency at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell.
Amihai Rottenstreich, MD
Mentor: Barry S. Coller, MD
Lab: Allen and Frances Adler Laboratory of Blood and Vascular Biology
Email: arottenstr@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Rottenstreich’s research interest focuses on the issue of obstetric hematology.
Current Research Project Title: Genetic, Laboratory, and Clinical Factors Associated with Low-Dose Aspirin Failure In the Prevention of Preeclampsia
Bio: Dr. Rottenstreich received his MD from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Israel. Dr. Rottenstreich completed his residency in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel
Dennis Schaefer-Babajew, MD
Mentor: Michel Nussenzweig, MD, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Molecular Immunology
Email: dschaefer@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Schaefer-Babajew’s research focuses on the question of how soluble antibodies can impact subsequent adaptive immune reactions, both clinically and in terms of fundamental immunobiology.
Current Research Project Title: An observational study on the longitudinal effects of passively infused monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) on subsequent adaptive immune responses to cognate antigen.
Bio: Dr. Schaefer-Babajew received his MD from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. As a Clinical Scholar, Dr. Schaefer-Babajew will study the effects of passively administered neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 antibodies on subsequent adaptive immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in healthy adult volunteers. Using single-cell techniques and clonal analyses of the antigen-specific B and T cell compartment, he aims to elucidate how exogenously administered monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) can shape host adaptive immunity.
Leon L. Seifert, MD, PhD
Mentor: Charles Rice, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Virology and Infectious Disease
Email: lseifert@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Seifert’s research interests are liver diseases and liver cirrhosis. He is particularly focused on the hepatitis b infection, a viral disease that affects ~250 million people worldwide.
Current Research Project Title: In vivo Hepatitis B virus launch from Patient-derived HBV DNA: A Novel Method to Study Patient-Specific Virus Diversity
Bio: Dr. Seifert received his MD from Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster in Germany. He completed the residency program in internal medicine and gastroenterology at University Hospital Münster.
Mai Takahashi, MD, MPH
Mentor: Sohail Tavazoie, MD, PhD
Lab: Elizabeth and Vincent Meyer Laboratory of Systems Cancer Biology
Email: mtakahashi@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Takahashi’s Mai’s research interest is the molecular mechanisms of cancer metastasis and exploring potential key genes associated with disease progression. Her research project will focus on the biological understanding of signaling pathways on pancreatic cancer and colon cancer metastasis and its therapeutic targeting
Bio: Dr. Takahashi’s received her MD from Chiba University, Faculty of Medicine, Chiba, Japan and MPH from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA. Dr. Takahashi completed general medicine residency at Saku Central Hospital, Nagano, Japan, and internal medicine residency at Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York.
Zijun Wang, MD, PhD
Mentor: Michel Nussenzweig, MD, PhD
Lab: Laboratory of Molecular Immunology
Email: zwang03@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Wang’s research interest is the evolution of antibody responses to virus infection and vaccination, which includes SARS-CoV-2, HIV-1, and HBV.
Current Research Project Title: Characterization of the HBV-Specific T-Cell responses in Chronic HBV infection
Bio: Dr. Wang received her MD and PhD from Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University in China. She completed the dermatology residency program at Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University.
Shin-Rong (Julia) Wu, MD, PhD
Mentor: Sidney Strickland, PhD
Lab: Patricia and John Rosenwald Laboratory of Neurobiology and Genetics
Email: swu01@rockefeller.edu
Research Interest: Dr. Wu’s research interest focuses on how the immune and blood clotting systems interact to maintain homeostasis in health and to affect organ damage in disease. Her research project seeks to understand how peripheral blood components, encompassing both cellular populations and plasma proteins, contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.
Current Research Project Title: Investigating the Impact of Inflammation on Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) Expression in the Hematopoietic Compartment
Bio: Dr. Wu received her MD and PhD from the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Wu completed her internal medicine residency at New York-Presbyterian, Weill Cornell Medical Center. She is currently doing her Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at New York-Presbyterian, Weill Cornell Medical Center.