Lab Members
Principal Investigator
Raghu Kalluri, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Chairman, Department of Cancer Biology
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
*Adjunct Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Baylor College of Medicine
*Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering
Rice University
Raghu received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Kansas Medical Center and his M.D. degree from Brown University Medical School. Kalluri was a Post-doctoral fellow and a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and studied immunology and mechanisms associated with tissue injury and repair employing organ fibrosis as model system. In 1997, he moved to Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and as a faculty member in the Department of Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In 2006, Dr. Kalluri was appointed the Chief of the Division of Matrix Biology and was promoted to Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He held faculty appointments in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Stem Cell Institute in the division of ephrology of the Children’s Hospital Boston. Raghu was recruited to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2012 as a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cancer Biology and the Director of the Metastasis Research Center. His aboratory is broadly interested in investigating the functional contribution of cell and tissue microenvironment, and Exosomes in cancer progression and metastasis.
Administrators
Eboni Pettus
Research Department Administrator
EPettus@mdanderson.org
713-745-6609
Annemarie Putze
Executive Assistant
APPutze@mdanderson.org
713-794-5310
Julie Theobald
Program Coordinator
JBTheobald@mdanderson.org
713-792-6374
Jennifer Yang
Secretary
JSYang@mdanderson.org
713-792-2138
Laboratory Manager
Michelle Kirtley, B.S., MPH.
Laboratory Manager and Research Investigator
Michelle graduated from Texas A&M University with a B.S. degree in Marine Biology and from Florida International University with a M.S. degree in Public Health. Prior to joining the Kalluri Lab in 2017, she worked at the University of Texas Medical Branch where she investigated virulence gene regulation, pathogenic mechanisms, and vaccine candidates for select agent pathogens. Currently, Michelle functions as the laboratory manager for the Kalluri Laboratory and handles reagent purchasing, oversight of the animal colonies, supervision of the laboratory related logistics, monitoring IACUC and IRB submissions and approvals and general laboratory maintenance. Additionally, Michelle participates and aids in several research projects as a research investigator.
MLKirtley@mdanderson.org
713-745-9528
Postdoctoral Fellows
Joseph L. Alge, B.S., M.D., Ph.D.
Physician-Scientist Postdoctoral Fellow
Joey received his B.S. from Wofford College in Biology and French. He received his M.D., Ph.D. in 2015 from the Medical University of South Carolina. His Ph.D. thesis was on acute renal injury and identification of urine biomarkers using mass spectrometry. In 2015, he joined the Pediatric Residency at the Baylor College of Medicine as part of the Pediatrician-Scientist Training and Development Program. He joined Kalluri Laboratory in 2016 to pursue research in areas of kidney fibrosis and pathogenesis of genetic kidney disease, Alport Syndrome.
Elena Rodriges Blanko, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Elena completed her B.S. in Biotechnology at DI Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology of Russia in 2007. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Microbiology and Biochemistry in 2014 from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, in Carbondale, Illinois. Elena’s dissertation work focused on mismatch repair and chromatin structure. She joined the LeBleu Laboratory at MD Anderson in December 2014 as a postdoctoral fellow. Elena’s research interest is focused elucidating the role of tumor immunity in pancreatic cancer. In 2018, she joined the Kalluri Laboratory to continue her research on pancreatic cancer.
Julienne Carstens, B.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Julie received her Bachelors in Science from Louisiana Tech University in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2007. Julie completed her dissertation entitled “FGFR1, WNT, TGF-β, and SOX9 Collaborate in the Intricate Progression of Prostate Cancer” at Baylor College of Medicine in 2013, and joined the Kalluri lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2013. Her research focuses on elucidating functional contribution of epithelial plasticity and tumor microenvironment in pancreatic cancer.
Sara Che, B.Eng., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Sara received her B.Eng. in Nanotechnology Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2010, and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University in 2016. She joined the Kalluri laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow in 2016 and her research focuses on the biology of exosomes and engineering exosomes for therapeutic use in aging associated diseases and cancer.
Yang Chen, B.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Postdoctoral Fellow
Yang received his Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China in 2014 and joined the Kalluri Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow in 2014. His current research project focuses on the roles of investigating the functional heterogeneity of fibroblasts in health and disease with specific emphasis on pancreatic cancer progression and metastasis. Yang also employed novel mouse models to study tumor lymphangiogenesis and its contribution to lymphatic metastasis.
Anthony Chronopoulos, B.S., M.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Anthony received his Ph.D. from Imperial College London, UK in 2017. For his Ph.D., he focused on the impact of fibrosis and altered mechano-transduction signaling in the tumor stroma on pancreatic cancer progression. In 2017, he also received a fellowship from the European Institute of Technology and Innovation to design a lab-on-a-chip platform for exosome isolation and analysis. He holds a B.S. degree in Physics from the University of Athens, Greece and an M.S in Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine from the University College London. In 2018, he joined the Kalluri Laboratory to further pursue his research interests in the areas of exosomes and pancreatic cancer.
Pedro Correa De Sampaio, B.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Pedro received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2012, where he developed a new 3-dimensional model for the study of tumor angiogenesis. During his time in Cambridge he developed a keen interest in the tumor microenvironment and the different cellular interactions that control cancer progression. He joined the Kalluri laboratory at MD Anderson in 2012 to further pursue his interest in cancer biology. Pedro is currently involved in the study of mesenchymal cell populations in a pancreatic tumor microenvironment and their role in the regulation of metastasis. He is additionally interested in the biology of exosomes, and their role in cancer progression and metastasis.
Yibo Fan M.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Yibo received her M.D. degree in China Medical University in 2016, then worked in the department of Medical Oncology in the First Hospital of China Medical University as a lecturer. She joined Dr. Kalluri’s group as Postdoctoral fellowship in 2018. Her current research project focuses on the role of exosomes in cancer immunology.
Janine Hensel, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Janine received her M.Sc. degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the RWTH Aachen, Germany, in 2008. For her master thesis she joined the Institute of Medical Biology in Singapore to study human neural stem cells and their potential for cell replacement therapies. In 2009, she began Ph.D. work as a Marie Curie fellow at the University of Bern, Switzerland. During her time in the Urology Research Laboratory at the University of Bern, she studied the contribution of tumor microenvironment in bone metastatic disease. In 2016, she joined the Kalluri laboratory as a Swiss National Science Postdoctoral fellow to pursue her research interest in mechanism of disease pathogenesis associated with pancreatic cancer and employing genetically engineered mouse models and engineered exosomes to study the functional role of Myc in pancreatic cancer.
Fernanda G. Kugeratski, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Fernanda received her M.Sc. degree in Biosciences and Biotechnology from ICC-Fiocruz, Brazil in 2012, where she studied MAPK signaling pathways using quantitative proteomics and phosphoproteomics. In 2013, she started her Ph.D. program at CRUK Beatson Institute and was awarded a Ph.D. scholarship from Cancer Research UK. During her time at the Beatson, her major focus was to unravel mechanisms employed by hypoxic cancer-associated fibroblasts to promote angiogenesis and discovered two novel pro-angiogenic factors. Fernanda joined Dr. Kalluri's Laboratory at the MD Anderson Cancer Center as a Postdoctoral Fellow in October 2017 to pursue her interests in tumor microenvironment,
intercellular communication mediated by exosomes and to investigate the role of exosomes in immune-oncology.
intercellular communication mediated by exosomes and to investigate the role of exosomes in immune-oncology.
Sara Lovisa, B.S., M.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Sara graduated with a M.Sc. degree in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Padua, Italy, in 2008. In 2012, she received her Ph.D. in Clinical Science and Technology from the University of Udine (Italy) and worked on mechanisms of cancer cell cycle deregulation in Dr. Baldassarre’s laboratory at CRO National Cancer Institute (Aviano, Italy). Sara joined the Kalluri laboratory in 2013 as a postdoctoral fellow. Her research is focused on understanding the functional role and mechanism associated with epithelial- and endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition in organ fibrosis and cancer. Sara is also studying the functional contribution of type I collagen in organ fibrosis.
Kate McAndrews, B.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Kate received her B.S. from University of Nevada Reno in Chemical Engineering in 2010 and her PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 2015. She joined the Kalluri lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2015. Kate is investigating the mechanisms associated generation, release and uptake of exosomes by normal cells and cancer cells. Kate is employing siRNA and CRISPR screens coupled with 3D culture systems, novel transgenic mice, spheroids and organoids to identify novel pathways associated with creation of exosomes.
Fei Xiao, B.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Fei received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013 and then worked at the Lilly China Research and Development Center, Eli Lilly and Company for two years as a scientist. She joined the Kalluri lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2015. Fei is developing novel mouse models to study renal cell carcinoma using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Fei is engineering exosomes to deliver CRISPR-Cas9 constructs to generate novel mouse models of cancer and facilitate therapeutic gene editing.
Graduate Students
Lisa Becker, B.S., M.S.
Graduate Ph.D. Student
Lisa Becker received her Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology and her Master’s degree in Bioprocess Development from the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences (Germany) in 2012 and 2014. She joined the Kalluri Lab as a Ph.D. student in 2015. Her research interests include unraveling the functional contribution of carcinoma associated fibroblasts in metabolic rewiring of tumors and regulation of breast cancer progression and metastasis.
Kebbeh Darpolor, Sc.B
Graduate Ph.D. Student
Darpolor received her Sc.B in Immunobiology from Brown University in 2016. She joined the Kalluri Lab as a Ph.D. student in 2018. Her research interests are in the origins and functions of stroma in PDAC.
Kshipra Kapoor, B.S
Graduate Ph.D. Student
Kshipra received her B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Mumbai in 2016. She joined Rice University in 2016 for her M.S./Ph.D. integrated degrees and joined the Kalluri Laboratory for her thesis work in 2017. Dr. Kalluri is an adjunct faculty in Department of Bioengineering, Rice University. Kshipra is investigating electrical and biomechanical properties of exosomes.
Krishnan Mahadevan, B.S., M.D.
Graduate Ph.D. Student
Krishnan completed his M.D. from JIPMER, India in 2013. He worked as a clinical research fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital, HMS, Boston until 2015. He joined the Kalluri laboratory in 2016. His thesis goal is to understand the role of T-cells in pancreatic cancer progression and therapy response.
Mariangela Natale B.S., M.S.
Graduate Ph.D. Student
Mariangela Natale received her bachelor’s degree in biology and master’s degree in cellular and molecular biology (BMC) from the University of Bologna. In 2014, she joined the Ph.D. program as a Marie Curie fellow at the University of Coimbra under the mentorship of Dr. Kalluri, who holds an adjunct appointment in the University and co-leads a research group there. Mariangela's research focuses on determining the functional role of cancer associated
fibroblasts in initiation and progression of lung cancer. She is currently conducting her Ph.D. in the Kalluri laboratory at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.
fibroblasts in initiation and progression of lung cancer. She is currently conducting her Ph.D. in the Kalluri laboratory at the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Jena Tavormina, B.S.
Graduate Ph.D. Student
Jena graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Brown University in 2012 and worked as a research assistant at Boston Children's Hospital investigating pediatric retinal disorders with a focus on the long-term effects of retinopathy of prematurity. She joined UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in the summer of 2014 to begin working toward a Ph.D. in Cancer Biology and joined the Kalluri laboratory in 2015. Jena is investigating the mechanism of DNA accumulation in exosomes, identifying epigenetic changes in the exosomal DNA, and establishing its functional contribution to cancer progression.
Research Staff
Dara Dowlatshahi, B.S., Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Dara received his bachelor’s degree in Chemical & Biological Engineering from Northwestern University in 2006. In 2012, he received his Ph.D. in Biology investigating the roles of polyubiquitin signaling in retrovirus release in Dr. Ron Kopito’s laboratory at Stanford University. He then joined the biotech industry, where he most recently served as a scientist working on the upstream process development of antibody drug conjugates (ADC) and bispecific antibodies at Sutro Biopharma in South San Francisco, California. He joined the Kalluri lab in 2018 as a research scientist to further elucidate and develop new diagnostic and therapeutic applications of exosomes.
Jennifer Leveille, MPH
Sr. Research Asst.
Jennifer received her M.P.H. from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in 2017 and joined the Kalluri Lab as a Senior Research Assistant in November 2018. She most recently performed clinical genetic testing and led whole exome amplification for clinical research. Prior to that, she worked at the Emory Integrated Genomics Core where she held a comprehensive role, completing projects from DNA/RNA extraction, to library preparation, to Next Generation Sequencing on various platforms. Her function at the Kalluri lab will involve DNA and RNA sequencing from exosomes.
Patricia Phillips, B.S.
Research Assistant II
Patricia received her B.S. degree from The University of Texas at Austin in 2016 and joined the Kalluri Laboratory as a Research Assistant in 2017. Patricia is an expert in IHC and TSA multiplex histology, CyTOF and generation of exosomes derived from mesenchymal stem cells and provides technical support to the laboratory.
Laura M. Snowden, B.S.
Research Assistant II
Laura received her B.A. degree in Sociology from Baylor University and B.S. degree in Public Health with a minor in Biology from University of Houston. She joined the Kalluri Laboratory in 2018. Laura previously worked on the Knockout Mouse Phenotyping Project (KOMP2) at the University of Houston. Laura is involved in glioblastoma research and helps the laboratory with projects related to exosomes.
Hikaru Sugimoto, B.S., M.D., Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Hikaru completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in medicine at Okayama University, Japan. After having finished the residency program as a general physician, he trained as a diabetes specialist and a nephrologist. He moved to Boston in 1999 for a postdoctoral fellowship to study mechanisms associated with diabetic nephropathy. In 2001, he joined the Kalluri Lab in Boston to study tumor angiogenesis and develop novel angiogenesis inhibitors for treatment of cancer. His current research interests are to find new therapies for organ fibrosis and cancer metastasis. Hikaru also serves as the resident mouse surgeon the in the laboratory and trains new graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.
Sujuan Yang, B.S., M.S.
Senior Research Assistant
Sujuan received her Master’s degree from Peking University in China in 2011 and joined the Kalluri laboratory as a research assistant in 2015. Her research interests include nucleic analysis of exosomes, engineering exosomes for treatment of pancreatic cancer and development of novel methods to utilize single cell sequencing in identifying novel mediators of pancreatic cancer.
Kalluri Laboratory-Based Faculty Researchers
Jacqueline Parchem, B.A., M.D.
Physician Scientist Trainee
Dr. Jackie Parchem received her B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California Berkeley in 2004 and her M.D. from the University of California San Francisco in 2010. She completed residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at UCSF in 2014. She trained as Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellow at Baylor College of Medicine and currently is an attending physician in the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics
and Gynecology at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. In 2015, Jackie joined the Kalluri lab as a Physician Scientist Research Fellow. Her research interests include discovering the pathogenesis of preeclampsia and investigating the function of exosomes in pregnancy and fetal development. In 2017, Jackie was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology/ Maternal-Fetal Medicine at UT Health. Jackie continues to conduct her research in the Kalluri Laboratory.
and Gynecology at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. In 2015, Jackie joined the Kalluri lab as a Physician Scientist Research Fellow. Her research interests include discovering the pathogenesis of preeclampsia and investigating the function of exosomes in pregnancy and fetal development. In 2017, Jackie was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology/ Maternal-Fetal Medicine at UT Health. Jackie continues to conduct her research in the Kalluri Laboratory.
Olga V. Volpert, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Cancer Biology (Research Track)
Olga received her BMS in Microbiology form Moscow State University, Former USSR, in 1983 and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Cancer Biology from the Moscow State University, and Institute for Hematology of Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia) in 1997. She was with Northwestern University as a tenure-track Assistant Professor and later tenured Associate Professor from 2000 through 2016 and Joined the Kalluri lab in 2017. Olga is a pioneer in research related to tumor angiogenesis and did seminal research to discover thrombospondin 1 and pigment derived epithelial factor as angiogenesis inhibitors and regulators of cancer progression and metastasis. Her work in the Kalluri laboratory is focused on angiogenesis, function of exosomes in regulation of innate immune responses in cancer and exosomal DNA.
Alumni
Tomas Dias, B.S., M.S. Visiting Graduate Student
Hunter Elms, B.S. Medical Student - Summer Experience (2016)
Mariangela Natale, B.S., M.S. Visiting Graduate Student
Kathryn Tighe College Student - Summer Undergraduate Research Program (2016)
Tao Wei, B.S., M.D. Visiting Graduate Student (2016)
Donna Lundy, B.S., M.S. SR. Research Assistant (2016)
Jiha Kim, B.S., Ph.D. Instructor (2017)Margo Cain, B.S. Graduate Student (2017)
Mayela Mendt, Ph.D, Postdoctoral Fellows (2017)
Sushrut Kamerkar, B.S., Ph.D. Graduating Student (2017)
Eliot Fletcher, B.S., M.P.H., Ph.D. Graduating Student (2017)
Changsoo Kwak, B.S., M.S., Ph.D., Graduating Student (2017)
Matthew Scheible, B.S. Graduate Student (2017)
Kerri Wolf-Dennen, B.S., M.B.S. Graduate Student (2017)
Paul Kurywchak, B.S. Graduate Student (2018)
Xiaofeng Zheng, B.S., Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow
Yan Wang Research Investigator (2017)
Amanda Haltom, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow (2018)
Josephine “Kebbeh” Darpolor Graduate Research Assistant - GSBS Rotation Student (2018)
Chengyan “Nick” Dong Research Investigator (2018)
Ehsan Ehsanipour Graduate Research Assistant – GSBS (2018)
Paul Kurywchak Graduate Research Assistant – GSBS (2018)
Reshma Bhowmick Research Scientist (2018)
Liv Gansmo, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow (2018)
Li “Lily” Huang Senior Research Assistant (2018)