Current Fellows
Fellow Spotlight - September 2018
Dr. Ronja Anugwom (Dr. Junjie Chen Laboratory) was awarded a 2018 MD Anderson Cancer Center Odyssey Fellowship Award, supported by Theodore N. Law for Scientific Achievement. Her award: "Defining the H2AX-Independent DNA damage response pathway" was one of only three selected from highly competitive pool of post-doctoral fellows. This fellowship award provides up to three years of full funding beginning on September 1, 2018 for Dr. Anugwom's project.
Congrats to Ronja for earning this prestigious award.
CPRIT TRIUMPH Fellows
Current Students
Nicole Kettner, B.S., Ph.D.
Khandan Keyomarsi Laboratory
NMKettner@mdanderson.org - ORCID: 0000-0003-2043-4407
CPRIT TRIUMPH Fellow 2016-2017, 2017-2018
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.
Nabiollah Kamyabi, B.S., M.S., Ph.D.
Anirban Maitra Laboratory
NKamyabi@mdanderson.org
CPRIT TRIUMP Fellow 2017-2018
Dr. Kamyabi earned his Bachelors and Masters of Science Degrees at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. He continued his studies to earn his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech University before accepting his TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship position at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Kamyabi's Research Interests:
I work on engineering devices for in vitro metastatic models of cancer and high-throughput drug screening.
Current Funding Source:
Dr. Kamyabi is currently funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (CPRIT RP170067).
Ronja Anugwom, Ph.D.
Junjie Chen Laboratory
RAnugwom@mdanderson.org - ORCID: 0000-0002-3839-1057
CPRIT TRIUMPH Fellow 2018-2019
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 currently funded by the CPRIT TRIUMPH Postdoctoral Fellowship Award (CPRIT RP170067).
Announcements & News
CPRIT TRIUMPH Application cycle C closes on September 30, 2018. Apply today.