Faculty News

March 2, 2026

Congratulations New Research Awads (NOAs)

Mark Boldin, MD, PhD

R21 AI196968-01

NIH/NIAID

Molecular Mechenisms Govering Non-canonical miR-146 Biogensis

Melanie Shapiro, PhD

1-INO-2026-1850-A-N

Breakinghrough T1D

Do Islet Somatic Mutations Contribute to T1D Age at Onset?

Don Diamond, PhD

C6222

Subcontract from triad National Security, LLC for Los Alamos National Laboratory

Rapid Assessment of Platform Technologies to Expedite Response (RAPTER)

Adolfo Garcia-Ocaña, PhD & Alberto Pugliese, MD

R01 DK141874-01A1

NIH/NIDDK

DYRK1A inhibitors, GLP1 Receptor Agonists and Immunomodulation for Beta Cell Regeneration Therapy in Type 1 Diabetes

February 6, 2026

Congratulations New Research Awads (NOAs)

Stephanie Yoon, MD & Yun Rose Li, MD, PhD

Metavivor

METAvivor Early Career Investigator Award

Biomarker-Driven Approaches to Optimize Craniospinal Irradiation for Breast Cancer Leptomeningeal Disease

Marta Jankowska , PhD

Greater Value Portfolio Grant Program

Evaluating AI-Based Mortality Prognostication in Oncology: Implications for End-of-Life Care and Value-

Based Decision Support

Susan Neuhausen , PhD

R01 MD021367-01

Subaward from UCSF

Germline variation in homologous recombination repair genes in Hispanic/Latina women to predict breast cancer risk and response to treatment

Christine Brown, PhD

Aspire Award Grant Agreement

The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research

Subaward from Harvard Medical School

CAR-T cells high-plex special profiling

Zuoming Sun , PhD

IMMUNIC Fellowship Agreement

December 17, 2025

Congratulations New Research Awads (NOAs)

Percy Lee, MD

National Cancer Institute

UG3 CA 247605-05

Subaward from Thomas Jeffereson University

  Quantitative Lung Function Imaging to Reduce Toxicity for patients treated with Radiation and Immunotherapy
 

December 4, 2025

Congratulations to the 1st & 2nd session of CHARM.

November 20, 2025

Congratulations to NOAs

Kathleen Van Dyk, PhD

National Cancer Institute

R37 CA306402

Subaward from Kaiser Foundation Hosp

Predicting trajectories of function, cognition, and quality of life among older adults with advanced lung cancer

Farooq Syed, PhD

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

R21 AI193399-01

Subaward from Indiana University

Soluble Lymphocyte Activation GENE-3 (s-LAG-3) and Insulin m-RNA: A Potential Surrogate Markers for Disease Progression and Immunotherapy

Annette Mercurio, MCHES, MPH

American Cancer Society

ACS Contract #109988

Improving Treatment of Advanced Breast Cancer

Principal Illness Navigation Quality Improvement/ Practice Transformation

Lee Jones, PhD

Yosemite VC

Exercise in combination with CAR T cell therapy in multiple myeloma: a proof-of-concept trial

Zahra Nasim Eftekari

Yosemite VC

Next generation HopeLLM (Hope.ai): Building an Agentic Multimodal Intelligence Framework for Oncology

Charles Brenner, PhD

Samuel Wasman CRF

Identification of age-dependent and diet-dependent modifiers of intestinal carcinogenesis

November 3, 2025

Congratulations to October NOAs

Robert Hickey, PhD

RLL, LCC

AOH1996 and Bone Metastases Research

Russell Rockne, PhD

NCI/Subaward from Virginia Tech

U01CA305075-01

Flow-informed therapy for glioblastoma

Charles Brenner, PhD

NHLB/Subaward from UCLA

R01HL180429-01

NNMT Inhibition for treating heart failure

Rui Su, PhD

NCI/Subaward from Mayo Clinic

R01 CA278050-04

Mechanism and therapeutic opportunities of targeting the Tudor domain

Miguel Zugman, MD

Postdoctoral Fellow for Sumanta Pal, MD

Kidney Cancer Association

Stool microbiome assessment in a randomized phase I trial of nivolumab and ipilimumab with or without EXL01 in the first-line treatment of metastatic renal   cell carcinoma (mRCC)

October 20, 2025

Congratulations to Dr. Mark LaBarge, for being an invited speaker to the Breat Oncology Retreat with Moffitt Cancer Center. 

Congratulations to Dr. Saro Armenian for being the 2025 Impact Award recipient. 

October 13, 2025

Congratulations to Dr. Christopher Sistrunk, as the keynote speaker for our upcoming event, Breaking Barriers: Leveraging Biotech for Upward Mobility, co-hosted with LA BioSpace on Wednesday, October 15th from 6–9 PM at LA BioSpace.

October 2, 2025

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

PI	Sponsor	Award #/ Title	Amount/ Year
Julia Panzer, PhD, Assistant Res Prof Alberto Pugliese Laboratory		K01 DK144654-01 Alpha Cell Heterogeneity: Unveiling Novel Targets for T1D therapy	$768K Total Costs 5 years
Eryun Zhang, PhD, Staff Scientist Wendong Huang Laboratory		K01 DK142039-01A1 The gut-fat crosstalk in metabolic regulation	$420K Total Costs 3 years
Susan Neuhausen, PhD		U54 CA302452-01 Subaward from UCSF Interplay of tumor genomic and immune characteristics and social and structural drivers of health to improve cancer health disparities outcomes	$525K Total Costs 5 years
Debbie Thurmond, PhD		3-SRA-2026-1797-M-B Combination therapy with STX4 activating small molecules or small activating RNA together with harmine to stimulate beta-cell regeneration and enhance functional beta-cell mass	$1.05M Total Costs 3 years
Sarah Shuck, PhD	Blood Sugar to Tumor Growth	How Diabetes Fuels Pancreatic Cancer Onset	Stephenson Scholar Grant Recipient

August 20, 2025

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

PI	Sponsor	Award #/ Title	Amount/ Year
Andri Lemarquis, MD, PhD Staff Sci van den Brink Lab	Thymogenesis, Inc	Human thymus tissue analysis	$200K Total Costs 2 year
Sarah Shuck, PhD		R13 Es0380002-01 Conference Grant Division of Chemical Toxicology Symposia at the 270th National ACS meeting	$13,000 Total Costs
Zaohui Gu, PhD		R37 CA300358 The Role and Function of a Novel Signature Gene in BCR::ABL1 (Ph) B-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia	$2.6M Total Costs 5 years
Rma Natatajan, PhD & Zhen Bouman Chen, PhD		R01 DK143577-01 Chromatin remodeling factors and mechanisms in diabetic microvascular complications	$3.6M Total Costs 5 year

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Congratulations to Rama Natarajan, Ph.D., and Joyce Niland, Ph.D., have been selected as 2025 WIELD Diabetes Trailblazers.

July 9, 2025

Congratulations Dr. LaBarge!

On behalf of the GSO’s Curriculum Committee and the student body, we are excited to congratulate Dr. Mark LaBarge on being named the 2024–2025 Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences Professor of the Year!

Each year, this award is determined by the first year cohort to honor a faculty member in recognition of their outstanding commitment to teaching. Dr. LaBarge’s enthusiasm left a lasting impression on this year’s cohort. This recognition reflects the impact he’s had in the classroom and beyond.

Dr. LaBarge is a Professor in the Department of Population Sciences at City of Hope and Deputy Director of Basic Sciences in the Center for Cancer and Aging. His research focuses on how breast tissue becomes more susceptible to cancers during the aging process. He is also a dedicated mentor and educator, known for supporting trainees at all levels.

Here are a few words from Dr. LaBarge:
“Dear First-Year PhD Class,

Wow. Thank you all so much for naming me Professor of the Year! I’m very honored! Teaching is one of the great privileges of my job. It’s also one of the more unpredictable ones. I spend a lot of time prepping material, hoping it’s clear, relevant, and maybe even a little interesting, all while wondering: Is anyone still awake? So to find out that something stuck—and that it meant enough to you to give me this recognition—well, that’s incredibly meaningful. As you probably know, faculty around here are selected for our science, not necessarily our dazzling teaching skills. And yet, we all love the chance to share what we know (and sometimes what we think we know), and we all work hard at teaching when asked to do so. To be recognized for that is genuinely rewarding. Thank you for the honor, the questions, the occasional confused stares, and mostly for letting me be part of your journey. You’re the reason this job is worth the effort.”

We invite everyone to join us in congratulating Dr. LaBarge on this well-deserved honor! If you see him around, please take a moment to thank him for his commitment to the students here at COH.

June 5, 2025

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

PI	Sponsor	Award #/ Title	Amount/ Year
Christine Brown		SRA TROVO Equipment Studies	$30,000 Total Costs 1 year
Don Diamond		OTL 25-179 Sponsored Research Agreement Design, Production, and Characterization of Two Updated Versions of Omicron-CM04S1-sMVA	$264,354 Total Costs 1 year
June-wha Rhee		R01 HL173308-01A1 Novel mechanisms and therapeutics for Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor-induced Cardiotoxicity	$3.6M Total Costs 5 years
Vicky Seewaldt		Subaward from UCSD TNBC Time Machine – Delta Tissue Transition Proposal	$400,000 Total Costs 1 year

April 24, 2025

Congratulations to Dr. Qiong (Annabel) Wang and her research group on their paper published in Science. 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adj0430

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx1198

March 5, 2025

Congratulations to Dr. Bild on paper published in Nature Communications 

https://rdcu.be/eb1Fg

February 20, 2025

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

PI	Sponsor	Award #/ Title	Amount/ Year
Yuman Fong		Sponsored Research Agreement HOV2/HOV4 Stability and Compatibility Work	$225,397 Total Costs 1 year
Helena Reijonen		RSubaward from Benaroya Research Institute Cooperative harmonization and validation of an islet-specific AIM assay	$13,000 Total Costs 1 year
Alexey Danilov		Sponsored Research Agreement The effect of chimeric targeting molecule (CTM) NX-2127 on T-cell functionality in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)	$100,000 Total Costs 1 year

December 23, 2024

Congratulations to Dr. Rahul Jandial on his released book "THIS IS WHY YOU DREAM"

Congratulations to Prajish Lyer on your Career Development Award from Tower of Cancer Foundation

December 18, 2024

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

PI	Sponsor	Award #/ Title	Amount/ Year
Rui Su		R01 CA296394-01 Targeting mitochondrial RNA methylation in high-risk acute myeloid leukemia	$2,400,000 Total Costs 5 years
Lili Wang   Alexey Danilov		R01 CA283171-01A1 Attacking the Tumor Cell-Immune Milieu Interface to Overcome Richter's Transformation	$3,500,000 Total Costs 5 years

December 11, 2024

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

PI	Sponsor	Award #/ Title	Amount/ Year
Flavia Pichiorri		000016394-A Subaward from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Targeting CD38 in Pediatric Acute leukemias	$47,920 Year 1 Total Costs 3 years (Y2-3 $ TBD)
Xiuli Wang Alex Herrera Ryotaro Nakamura		CA296280-01 CMV-specific CD19 CAR T cells amplified in vivo using CMV Triplex vaccine for B-NHL	~$3.7M Total Costs 5 years
Mingye Feng		HT94252510023 A Role of Peptidylarginine Deiminases in Mediating Immune Evasion of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer	$800,643 Total Costs 3 years

November 6, 2024

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

Pi	Sponsor	Award #/ Title	Amount/ Year
Shiuan Chen		OTL-24-495-2024 Use of active components of White Button Mushroom for in vitro and in vivo assays of anti-cancer activity	$137,750 Total Costs 3 years
David Ann		SCON-00007074 Subaward from USC The impact of tobacco smoke exposure on alveolar epithelial cells in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis	$45,542/year Total Costs 3 years

November 5, 2024

Arthur Riggs, Diabetes Metabolism & Research Institute Seminar Series 
Invites You to a Seminar 
Presented by 

Markus Kalkum, PhD 

Professor, Department of Immunology & Theranostics 
City of Hope 

“Electing Novel LC/MS Approaches for the Discovery of Bioactive Metabolites” 

Tuesday, November 5, 2024 
1:00 - 2:00pm 

October 29, 2024

Invites you to a seminar presented by the 

Morgan Chu Distinguished Visiting Professor:

James B. Lorens, Ph.D.

Professor

Department of Biomedicine 
University of Bergen, Norway

 

“AXL as a Therapeutic Target in Cancer”

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, PDT

contact [email protected] for more information. 

October 25, 2024

Welcome

Welcome Sharon Baumel-Alterzon, Ph.D., to City of Hope as an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular & Cellular Endocrinology. We are excited that Dr. Baumel-Alterzon has accepted to be a Faculty member in the Irell & Manella Graduate School.  

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Announcing Bio-Entrepreneurship Speaker Series:

We want to make sure you see this, and we want to make sure you know that if you are curious about turning basic science into biotech companies then this might be for you…

Ever feel like there's no handbook for launching a biotech company? That's because there isn't! But we've got the next best thing for you. The Postdoctoral Training Office, the Irell and Manella Graduate School, and the Office of Technology Licensing are combining forces to bring you the Bio-Entrepreneurship Speaker Series!

That’s right! We're hosting a bio-entrepreneurship speaker series right here at City of Hope. This is your chance to meet innovators and professionals from the startup world—people you'd probably have a hard time connecting with otherwise. They're ready to share their hard-won knowledge and real-life stories you just can't find in any book or online.

- Learn from the pros: Hear firsthand about the challenges and triumphs of clinical translation and commercialization.

- Exclusive networking: Rub elbows with industry pros and fellow scientists in a relaxed, informal setting.

Event Details:

Whether you are a faculty (Clinical or BRI), a postdoctoral fellow, a clinical fellow, a grad student, in tech transfer, or just really interested in biotechnology and translating discovery into care this is a golden opportunity to gain insights that only come from lived experiences.

Don't miss out on stories and advice you won't get anywhere else—and maybe spark some ideas for your own biotech journey!

This is for internal faculty (Clinical or BRI), a postdoctoral fellow, a clinical fellow, a grad student: For more information, please contact Dr. Mark LaBarge [email protected].

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October 21, 2024

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

Pi	Sponsor	Award #/ Title	Amount/ Year
Robert Jenq		P01 HL170046-01A1 Mucus-degrading intestinal bacterial and toxicities of hematopoietic cell transplantation	$12.2M Total Costs 5 years

October 8, 2024

Welcome Dr. James Lorens - Morgan Chu Visiting Professor

We are pleased to announce that Prof. James Lorens from the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Bergen School of Medicine in Bergen, Norway, will be joining us as a Morgan Chu Visiting Professor from October 1 to December 15th, 2024 hosted by Prof. Mark LaBarge.

Prof. Lorens is a recognized academic entrepreneur with nearly 40 years research and industry experience from the US and Europe. He was a postdoc in the lab of Prof. Garry Nolan at Stanford University that spun-out Rigel Pharmaceuticals in 1997. He led a technology innovation team during the start-up phase, and Oncology R&D during later expansion of the company through NASDAQ listing. Returning to Norway as a full professor in 2004, his academic lab in Bergen identified the AXL receptor tyrosine kinase as a critical cancer drug target and developed the first clinical AXL targeting agents. He founded BerGenBio ASA in 2007 to translate these results and served as CSO 2008 - 2021. BerGenBio took the first AXL kinase inhibitor (bemcentinib) into the clinic in 2013 and was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2017. Bemcentinib has subsequently been studied in 14 Phase I/II studies spanning both myeloid leukemia and solid tumors, and COVID-19. His academic group also licensed anti-AXL antibodies that formed the basis for further clinical targeting agents now in 3 clinical trials. Prof. Lorens is an experienced educator and frequent invited speaker on innovation. He has served on several government innovation policy boards and is a life science industry consultant and board member. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences.

During his stay, Prof. Lorens will co-host a seminar series on bioentrepreneurship with Dr. Mark LaBarge, Dr. Ginne Xu, and Dr. Graham Cole.  Inspired by the SPARK program at Stanford, the goal of this speaker series is to introduce IMGS faculty and students to the process of translating research results into the clinic. Invited experts will discuss different facets of the clinical translational and commercialization process.

Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Prof. Lorens at IMGS.

September 27, 2024

Congratulations Faculty on your Research Awards:

September 4, 2024

Welcome Dr. Rotem Karni - Morgan Chu Visiting Professor

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Rotem Karni, a distinguished researcher from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will be joining us as the Morgan Chu Visiting Professor from September 3rd to December 22nd, 2024. Dr. Karni's groundbreaking research focuses on the role of alternative splicing and splicing factors in cancer and genetic diseases, with a special emphasis on developing therapeutic strategies to target these processes. His contributions to understanding the dysregulation of splicing as a therapeutic target are truly exceptional. Dr. Karni is co-hosted by Dr. Lili Wang and Dr. Frankie Yang.

Dr. Karni earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and completed his postdoctoral research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory under the mentorship of Dr. Adrian Krainer. He is currently a full Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Hebrew University. Among his many accomplishments are numerous high-impact publications, including in Nature, patents for innovative therapeutic approaches, and successful investments in RNA therapy startups.

Dr. Karni's pioneering work on RNA splicing identified SRSF1 as a proto-oncogene and revealed its role in cancer progression through its effects on splicing targets. His research has paved the way for the development of splice-switching and decoy oligonucleotides that target specific splicing factors, offering new therapeutic possibilities for cancers such as glioblastoma, as well as genetic diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy. His work has also led to patented technologies with promising results in preclinical models and early-stage commercial applications.

We are confident that Dr. Karni's expertise and dedication to unraveling the complexities of RNA splicing will be an inspiration to our students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty. Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Karni at IMGS.

August 19, 2024

On behalf of the GSO’s Curriculum Committee and the graduate student body, we would like to publicly congratulate Dr. Tim Synold who has been voted the 2023-2024 Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Studies Professor of the Year! 

The IMGS Professor of the Year Award is awarded to one professor each year and is determined by the first-year students, who select one professor that they believe went the extra mile. This award is a testament to Dr. Synold’s dedication to teaching and his ability to make complex subjects engaging and accessible for students. 

Dr. Synold is a renowned clinical and molecular pharmacologist, with over 25 years of experience in chemistry and pharmacology. He serves as the director of the Analytical Pharmacology Laboratory and is also the scientific leader of the COH Phase I Clinical Trial team and the director of Pharmacology for the NCI-supported California Cancer Consortium. 

Here are a few words from Dr. Synold: “I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the GSO, Curriculum Committee and the first-year graduate students. It was, in fact, my privilege to have had the opportunity to teach such an exceptional group. The students’ engagement and enthusiasm inspired me to be a better instructor, and I took away from the experience at least as much as I gave in return. My module was translational and patient-focused and was something of a departure from the rest of the course, so I am particularly encouraged that this group appreciated that translational science is at the heart of what we do at the City of Hope. While scientific thought and practice is the educational focus of the Graduate School’s outstanding curriculum, we should never lose sight of why we do what we do.”