2021 Grantees

Veena Padmanaban, M.S., Ph.D.
Rockefeller University
Dr. Padmanaban is at The Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Sohail Tavazoie, M.D., Ph.D. She received her B.Tech. in Biotechnology from SRM University, India, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. Her research aims to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the pathological evidence that increased innervation is associated with increased metastatic relapse in a number of cancers. These findings would define the mechanisms by which neurons and immune cells cooperate to drive metastasis and perhaps, also present the neuron- cancer circuit as an attractive therapeutic target for metastatic disease.

Simon Joost, Ph.D.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute
Dr. Joost is at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the laboratory of Tuomas Tammela, M.D., Ph.D. He received his B.Sc. in Human Biology from Marburg University, Germany, and both his M.Sc. in Biomedicine and his Ph.D. in Medical Science from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. His project focuses on how metabolic microenvironments drive molecular and functional tumor heterogeneity in lung and pancreatic cancer. This project aims to advance our understanding of how molecular and phenotypic cell diversity in tumors is maintained, and how it could be therapeutically modulated. Establishing a mechanistic relationship between metabolic niches and tumor heterogeneity could mark an important shift in cancer therapy.

Hans-Georg Sprenger
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dr. Sprenger is at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Bruce M. Spiegelman, Ph.D. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Cologne, Germany and worked at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing. His work aims to identify novel components of the unique metabolism of one of the most difficult-to-treat cancers, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). His project focuses on the metabolic rewiring of HCC and aims to decipher novel molecular components which will inform the development of more effective cancer therapies.

Prasad Trivedi, Ph.D.
UCSD
Dr. Trivedi is postdoc at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California San Diego in the laboratory of Don Cleveland, Ph.D. He received his M.Sc. in Biotechnology from the University of Pune in India and Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, VA. His research aims to identify proteins and mechanisms that drive the evolution of cancer genomes. His project focuses on understanding how focal complex chromosomal rearrangements arise from mistakes in cell division. Understanding these mechanisms would lead to novel therapeutic strategies to limit cancer genome evolution with pan-cancer applicability.

Rigney Turnham, Ph.D.
UCSF
Dr. Turnham is at the University of California San Francisco, in the laboratory of John Gordan, M.D., Ph.D. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her lab has focused on the causes of liver cancer, specifically the hepatitis B virus (HBV) to identify targetable mechanisms of tumor initiation and growth. The goal of her project is to identify signaling dependencies in hepatocellular carcinoma by understanding the effects of HBV on phosphatase and kinase complexes, and thus nominate new therapeutic targets for this difficult to treat cancer.
Dr. Turnham is the Hope Funds for Cancer Research Grillo-Marxuach Fellow