Lab Members

Frederick Lang, M.D.
Lab Director

Frederick Lang, M.D., is the chair and director of clinical research of Neurosurgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He joined the faculty in 1996 after completing the Neurosurgical Oncology Fellowship with the department. He is an NIH-funded, translational researcher who has published extensively on gene, viral, and cellular therapies for brain tumors, and is principal investigator on multiple clinical trials that investigate these new approaches. He is a past president of the Society of Neuro-Oncology and past chair of the AANS/CNS Section on Tumors. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and has served on the editorial board of several prominent journals. Currently, he serves as the PI for MD Anderson’s Brain Cancer SPORE grant, one of only five such federally funded grants in the country, and co-leader of MD Anderson’s Glioblastoma Moon Shot™. 

Marc Daou, M.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Marc Daou received his medical degree from Saint-Joseph University in Beirut, Lebanon in June 2018. While earning his M.D., he completed two years of clinical training and research at both Hôtel-Dieu de France and Saint-Joseph hospitals in Beirut. His thesis focused on the study of attitudes of Lebanese psychiatrists and psychiatry residents towards ethical issues in mental health care. He joined the Lang lab in October 2018, and his current research involves studying the effects of radiation therapy and chemotherapy on GBM genomic profiles using single cell sequencing.

Joy Gumin
Laboratory Coordinator

Joy Gumin received her bachelor’s degree in biology from University of Houston. Before joining the Lang lab in 2001, Joy worked as a senior research assistant in Experimental Radiation Oncology for three years. Her current research study is looking into the sensitivity of glioma stem cells to the replication competent adenovirus Delta-24-RGD. She is also working on the characterization of patient-derived bone-marrow human mesenchymal stem cells as virus carriers for the treatment of glioblastoma.

Irtiza Hasan, M.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Irtiza Hasan received his medical degree from Ibrahim Medical College in Bangladesh. Following graduation, he received his ECFMG certification in the US and went on to complete double M.Sc. in Cardiology and Internal Medicine from the University of Edinburgh in 2017. He is also a member of Royal College of Physicians in the UK. He participated in an NIH-funded research project to develop a medical device for neonates born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome at the Michael E. DeBakey Institute for Cardiovascular Physiology and Biomedical Devices. He also received special mention for a research project on the antimicrobial susceptibility assessment in relation to the presence of CRISPR-Cas system. In 2017, Hasan joined in the Lang Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. His project focuses on the screening of microRNAs to determine the most promising microRNAs with therapeutic potential in GBM treatment. Hasan is actively involved with the postdoctoral association at MD Anderson and is a council member of Texas Medical Center Postdoctoral Fellow Council. He is also the vice-chair of Responsible Conduct of Research subcommittee.

Anwar Hossain, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist

Anwar Hossain completed his bachelor and master’s degrees in biochemistry at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. He completed his Ph.D. in molecular biology at the Tohoku University in Japan, as a recipient of the Japanese Government Scholarship. He completed his post-doctoral training at MD Anderson under the supervision of Grady Saunders, Ph.D., and joined the Lang Lab in 2008. Hossain’s primary research interest has been to understand the role of microenvironment in glioma pathogenesis. He has been involved in key research projects studying glioma microenvironment using mouse model and targeted drug delivery using MSC and exosomes to the gliomas. In 2014, he was awarded the Career Development Award from the MD Anderson Brain Cancer SPORE.

Daniel Ledbetter
Research Investigator

Daniel Ledbetter received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Texas A&M University and his master’s degree in biology from the University of Kentucky. His graduate research focused on discerning the roles of Bcl-2 family proteins in regulating apoptosis during development and tumorigenesis. His research in the Lang Lab contributes to identifying and characterizing the role of mesenchymal stem-like cells in glioblastoma. Prior to joining the Lang Lab, he worked as a research assistant for Claudio Tatsui, M.D., associate professor of Neurosurgery, to develop novel three-dimensional culture methods for in vitro tumor analyses.

Lihong Long
Research Investigator

Lihong earned her master’s degree in epidemiology from UTHealth School of Public Health. Prior to joining the Lang lab, she worked in the Brian Tumor Center under Erik Sulman, M.D., Ph.D. As part of the clinical research team in the Lang lab, Lihong will continuously work on clinical specimen collection, processing and database. She is also working on developing biomarker research projects.

Brittany Parker Kerrigan, Ph.D.
Scientific Manager

Brittany Parker Kerrigan received her bachelor of science in biology from the University of California, Irvine. At Irvine, she became increasingly interested in neuroscience while she performed Huntington’s disease research in the laboratory of Gary Lynch, Ph.D. She then worked for the pharmaceutical company, Allergan, Inc., where she performed retinal disease research. She earned her Ph.D. at The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston in 2014, where she studied molecular pathologies behind the formation of high-grade brain tumors. She is passionate about encouraging young women and minorities to pursue careers in the STEM fields, and served as president of the Houston chapter of the Association for Women in Science. Her current research focuses on creating personalized medicine for patients with glioblastoma. In 2018, Brittany was promoted to scientific manager for Neurosurgery, overseeing the Glioblastoma Moon Shot™ and helping with the Brain Cancer SPORE and CCSG grants. 

Lynette Phillips, Ph.D.
Instructor

Lynette Phillips received her Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from Baylor College of Medicine. Her graduate studies focused on the role of the p53 tumor suppressor in the relationship between cancer and aging. Phillips came to MD Anderson in 2007 as a postdoctoral fellow in Pathology, where she studied the mechanisms by which lower grade glioma progress to high grade tumors. She joined the Lang Lab in 2016 and her current research focuses on exploring the anti-tumor mechanisms of Delta-24-RGD in an immunocompetent model.

Sanjay Singh, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist

Sanjay received his master of science in biotechnology from Madurai Kamaraj University in India and his Ph.D. in molecular biology and biochemistry from Southern Illinois University. Sanjay joined Dr. Lang’s lab in April 2019. His current research focuses on using existing pre-clinical tools along with newly developed tools, such as cerebral organoids, to understand the genesis and pathology of brain tumors. Sanjay has a long-standing interest in brain tumors and is very interested in understanding molecular mechanisms that govern neural cell behavior in 'normal' as well as 'transformed' context.

Jing Yang
Research Assistant II

Jing Yang earned her bachelor’s degree from Haerbing University in China. Prior to joining the Lang Lab, she worked with stem cells for 10 years in the Institute of Molecular Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHealth). She came to MD Anderson in 2013 to join the Lang Lab, where she works with cell cultures of glioma stem cells.