Current Trainees

Dr. Ayoub earned his B.S. in Biology from Long Island University (Brooklyn, NY). He later earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. (2019) - both in Pharmacology,  from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. His thesis work, supervised by Dr. Archibald Perkins, was titled "The role of EVI1 in hematopoietic stem cell differentiation and leukemia." In 2018, he was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA) F31 fellowship from the NIH/NHLBI for his work on EVI1 in hematopoiesis. Dr. Ayoub joined the TRIUMPH Program in Fall 2019. 

Dr. Ayoub's Research:
My research focuses on investigating the correlation between minimal residual disease and the chemotherapy resistance in high risk AML.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Ayoub is funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (RP170067).

Dr. Bildik received her B.S. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Istanbul University in Turkey. She earned her M.S. in Reproductive Biology from Koc University, where she trained in a translational research laboratory and focused on fertility preservation strategies against ovarian damage induced by chemotherapy and radiation in young female cancer survivors. She received her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Medicine from Koc University and completed her thesis, titled "DNA damage-induced and TAp63-mediated oocyte apoptosis is not associated with c-Abl activation in human ovary." Dr. Bildik joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellow in 2019.

Dr. Bildik's Research:
My research project focuses on better understanding the role of DIRAS3-mediated autophagy and the effect of DIRAS3 peptides on autophagy inhibition in kRAS-driven cancers. The ultimate goal is to understand autophagy-mediated drug resistance and seek more effective therapeutic interventions.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Bildik is funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (RP170067).

Dr. Fix received her dual BS in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. As an undergraduate research assistant, Dr. Fix's research focused on characterization of safety profiles of novel semi-fluorinated polymers via zebrafish embryo toxicity testing under the mentorship of Dr. Sandro Mecozzi. She also engaged in research with Drs. Jonathan Makielski and Ravi Balijepalli to explore molecular mechanisms by which ischemic preconditioning offers cardio-protection against subsequent ischemic damage. She earned her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she completed her thesis titled "Applying a molecular pharmaceutics framework to the study of ultrasound contrast agents" under the mentorship of Dr. Paul Dayton. Dr. Fix joined the TRIUMPH program as a Postdoctoral Fellow in 2019.

Dr. Fix's Research Interests:
The goal of my reserach is to increase the efficacy of adoptive cell therapy in melanoma by genetically engineering T cells to thrive within the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Fix is currently funded by her F32 Fellowship from the National Cancer Institute (1F32 CA253968).

Dr. Fuentes earned his B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Texas A&M Corpus Christi and his Ph.D. in Toxicology from Texas A&M University, where his work under Dr. Robert S. Chapkin. His graduate research on "Plasma membrane lipid therapy: Disruption of oncogenic RAS driven phenotypes by membrane targeted dietary bioactives (MTDBS)" provided the foundation for his T32-funded postdoctoral fellowship in the Chapkin Lab. Robert joined the TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in Houston in January 2020.

Dr. Fuentes's Research Interests:
My current research focuses on identfying novel mitochondrial- and plasma membrane-based therapeutic targets in pancreatic cancer. The ultimate goal is to develop membrane-based intervention strategies that improve clinical outcomes in patients.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Fuentes is funded by an National Cancer Institute awarded Diversity Supplement to R01CA227517 (PI: Dr. Cullen Taniguchi).

Dr. Lu received his BS in Biotechnology from the College of Life Science at Beijing Normal University and his PhD in Developmental Biology from that Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. His PhD work was completed under the mentorship of Dr. Hongmei Wang. Dr. Lu joined MD Anderson in 2018 as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Experimental Radiation Oncology and under the mentorship of Dr. Pawel K. Mazur. He joined the TRIUMPH program in late 2018.

Dr. Lu's Research Interests:
My research project focuses on generating next-generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer, proposing the strategy of "armoring" CAR-T cells with genetic modifications to establish a long-lasting response against the tumor.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Lu is currently funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (CPRIT RP170067). 

Dr. Mastoraki earned her B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). Her master's research focused on the study and clinical evaluation of SOX17 and BRMS1 promoters methylation in breast cancer patients using methylation-sensitive high-resolution melting analysis. She received her Ph.D. in 2018 from the University of Athens in Greece, where her Ph.D. thesis work sought to develop and clinically evaluate blood-based biomarkers in liquid biopsy samples of cancer patients. Dr. Mastoraki joined MD Anderson and the CPRIT TRIUMPH Program in 2019.

Dr. Mastoraki's Research:
NBC has the worst outcome compared to other breast cancer subtypes because of lack of targeted therapy. 70% of all TNBCs overexpress low molecular weight cyclin E (LMW-E) isoforms and these patients have a poor prognosis, whereas high tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) levels predict better overall survival in TNBC. Especially in the TNBC group, TILs are more abundant in LMWE positive patients than in LMW-E negative patients and among the high TIL group (>10%), patients who have LMW-E negative tumors, have higher probability of pCR than patients with LMW-E positive tumors. This makes us interrogate what is the role of LMW-E in TIL infiltration that turns them from good to bad predictors. I hypothesize that LMW-E induces immune and inflammatory responses that alter tumor microenvironment (TME) in the mammary gland, thus promoting tumor initiation and growth. To address this question and open novel therapeutic avenues for TNBC, I will use our inducible LMW-E transgenic mouse model, which is a valuable TNBC proxy. Our main goals are to assess the effects of mammary epithelial expression of LMW-E in regulating of different TIL subpopulations and inflammatory responses prior and during tumorigenesis, and to clinically translate our results using human TNBC tumors. Lastly, I will use this model to identify effective treatments combining targets of LMW-E mediated pathways and distinct immunotherapies.

Current Funding Source: 
Dr. Mastoraki is funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (RP170067).

Dr. Park earned her BS in Chemistry from the University of Oklahoma and her PhD in Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland). Her PhD project under the mentorship of Dr. Andrew Holland focused on understanding the role of splicing factors in centriole duplication. As a native of Houston, Liz moved home to join the TRIUMPH Program for her postdoctoral fellowship training in 2020. 

Dr. Park's Research Interests:
My research project focuses on identifying how the gut microbiome affects response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy and ICB-induced toxicity.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Park is funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (RP170067).

Dr. Pham earned her B.A. in Biology and Chemistry at Wesleyan College and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine under the guidance of Dr. Grzegorz Ira. Her Ph.D. project demonstrates how cells prevent the usage of very mutagenic pathway of the DNA Double Strand Breaks (DSBs) repair called Break Induced Replication (BIR). This pathway is responsible for many genomic instabilities in human, it is activated in cancer cells and it is normally suppressed during repair of so called two-ended DSBs. She also contributed to the identification of the new function of Dna2, a well-conserved nuclease and helicase, in preventing large and complex DNA insertions at chromosomal breaks. 

Dr. Pham's Research Interests:
Medium-chain Acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (MCAD) is one of the enzymes involved in mitochondrial fatty acid b-oxdation. The depletion of MCAD in primary glioblastoma triggered lipid peroxidation, oxidative stress, irreversible mitochondrial damage, and apoptosis. As inherited MCAD deficiency is a condition compatible with normal quality of life, the dependency of glioblastoma cancer cells of MCAD suggests a therapeutic window for GBM. My research project focuses on understanding the protective role of MCAD in tumorigenesis and/on progression of GBM.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Pham is funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (RP170067).                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Dr. Sans earned her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of New Orleans and her Ph.D in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. Her undergraduate research focused on synthesis and evaluation of nanoparticles for drug delivery and photothermal therapies in cancer. Her graduate work under the mentorship of Dr. Livia S. Eberlin focused on the development and applications of mass spectrometry technology to address relevant challenges in human health. She contributed to the development and application of the MasSpec Pen for in vivo use during human surgery and applied ambient ionization methods to investigate ovarian cancer aggressiveness and to generate molecular classifiers for improved diagnosis from frozen tissue secitons. Marta joined the TRIUMPH Program for her postdoctoral fellowship training at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Spring 2020.

Dr. Sans Escofet's Research Interests:
My research projects focus on the spatial investigation of the microenvironment in pancreatic cancer utilizing metabolomic and proteomic imaging with mass spectrometry and spatial transcriptomics. I am also currently working on applying mass spectrometry to investigate COVID-19 and develop new diagnostic and prognostic assays.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Sans Escofet is funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (RP170067).

Dr. Wang earned his B.S. in Life Sciences from Fudan University in China. He earned his PhD from the Irell and Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences at City of Hope National Medical Center in California. Here, his research identified strategies to overcome the challenges of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies against brain tumors and was supervised by Drs. Stephen Forman (MD) and Christine Brown (PhD). Dr. Wang joined the TRIUMPH Program in Fall 2020 as a TRIUMPH fellow in the laboratory of Dr. James Allison.

Dr. Wang's Research Interests:
My research interests will focus on understanding modifications on immune cells in response to immune checkpoint blockade therapy including anti-CTLA4 and anti-PD1. As immune checkpoint blockade has resulted in mixed outcomes in patients, it is critical to identify key components of immune cells that mediate the antitumor activities and respond to the therapy. My study also aims to develop combinational approach to further enhance the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Wang is funded by an NIH postdoctoral fellowship award (K00CA234923).

Dr. Yu earned her Bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Engineering and her M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Southeast University in Nanjing, China. During this time, her research focused on drug formulation, pharmaceutical analysis, and polymer synthesis and characterization. Her Master’s thesis was titled “Synthesis of PEG-PLA diblock copolymer and preparation of PEG-PLA microparticle.” She received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2018, where she researched polymeric drugs and nanoparticle use in anti-cancer and inflammatory bowel disease therapies and gene delivery. Dr. Yu joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as a TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellow in November 2018.

Dr. Yu's Research Interests:
My research project focuses on identification of inhibitors of Medium-Chain Acyl-CoA Dehydrogenase (MCAD) for glioblastoma and study of potential combinatorial strategy using specific MCAD inhibitor.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Yu is currently funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (CPRIT RP170067).

Dr. Zhao earned his B.S. in Bioengineering from Henan University in Kaifeng, China and his M.S. in Microbiology from China Agricultural University in Beijing, China. During this period, his research focused on DNA replication and cell cycle checkpoint in budding yeast under the mentorship of Dr. Huiqiang Lou. Dr. Zhao completed his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Georgia Institute of Technology, where his dissertation project under the mentorship of Dr. Patrick McGrath focused on Identification of the genetic and phenotypic basis of adaptation to new food sources in two laboratory domesticated Caenorhabditis elegansstrains. He also earned a M.S. in Statistics while at Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Zhao joined MD Anderson Cancer Center in Fall 2019 as a Postdoctoral Fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Nicholas Navin and later joined the TRIUMPH program in 2020. 

Dr. Zhao’s Research Interests:
My research focuses on delineating the evolution of therapeutic resistance and metastasis and identifying clinical markers in prostate cancer by utilizing single-cell sequencing and liquid biopsy genomics.  

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Zhao is funded by the MD Anderson Odyssey Fellowship (9/1/20 - Present), where he is an Odyssey Fellow. He was previously funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (CPRIT RP170067) from 5/1/20 - 8/31/20.

The current CPRIT TRIUMPH Application closes on December 31, 2021. Apply today.