Current Trainees

Dr. Kettner earned her Bachelor's degree from Winona State University, where her senior undergraduate research project studied the mechanism of Sbp1p mediated translational repression in S. cerevisiae under the mentorship of Dr. Scott Segal. She continued on to earn her Ph.D. at Baylor College of Medicine in Dr. Loning Fu's laboratory. Here, Dr. Kettner studied the role of the mammalian circadian clock in metabolism and tumor suppression. She completed a short postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Fu's laboratory to complete a project focused on the role of circadian disruption in metabolic syndrome-induced spontaneous hepatocarcinogenesis before coming to MD Anderson Cancer Center to work on her current project with Dr. Keyomarsi.

Dr. Kettner's Research Interests:
My research project focuses on identifying the biological mechanism(s) of the resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors and to identify independent biomarkers to predict response and/or resistance.

Current Funding Source: 
Dr. Kettner is currently funded by a U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program Breakthrough Fellowship Award (BC170615, PI: Nicole Kettner). This three-year fellowship award provides $480,000 in research funding for Dr. Kettner. She was previously funded as a CPRIT TRIUMPH Fellow (Aug 2016-Apr 2018). Dr. Kettner receives training from the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (RP170067).

Dr. Anugwom earned her Ph.D. in Radiation Biology at TU Darmstadt (Germany) under the mentorship of Markus Lobrich. Her Ph.D. project focused on Resection-dependent canonical non-homologous end-joining induction of genetic rearrangements. Dr. Anugwom recently accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at MD Anderson in the laboratory of Dr. Junjie Chen and relocated to the United States.

Dr. Anugwom's Research Interests:
In my research project I investigate unknown aspects of the DNA damage response network to learn how this network can be manipulated to enhance targeted cancer treatment.

Current Funding Source:
Dr. Anugwom is funded by the MD Anderson Odyssey Fellowship (9/1/18 - Present), where she is an Odyssey Fellow. She was previously funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (CPRIT RP170067) from 4/1/18 - 8/31/18 and continues to receive training from the CPRIT TRIUMPH Program.

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 Median-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. 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 immunotherpay 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. 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:

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

CPRIT TRIUMPH Application cycle C closes on September 30, 2019. Apply today.