Lab Members

Joseph McCarty, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator

Joseph McCarty, Ph.D., came to UT MD Anderson in 2005 as an assistant professor in Cancer Biology. In 2013 he took a position as associate professor in Neurosurgery to expound upon his interest in brain tumor research and was promoted to professor in 2018. He currently serves as the Principal Investigator for a NIH/NINDS funded project "Deciphering Mechanisms of Tumor Cell Invasion in Glioblastoma" and was one of the 2014 Developmental Research Project recipients for the Brain Cancer SPORE, through which he is researching the effects of "Targeting Spinophilin in Glioblastoma."

In 2006 Dr. McCarty was awarded the New Scholar Award in Aging from the Ellison Medical Foundation and in 2008 the Career Development Award from the UT MD Anderson Brain Cancer SPORE under the guidance of Principal Investigator W.K. Alfred Yung, M.D. Dr. McCarty is also a member of the Brain Tumor Research Program at UT MD Anderson, the Center for Stem Cell and Developmental Biology and the Cancer Metastasis Research Center.

John Morales, B.S. 
Laboratory Manager

John Morales received his bachelor's degree in biochemistry from The University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to UT MD Anderson in 2013 as a Senior Research Assistant in the McCarty Lab, John worked as a research assistant for 11 years at The University of Texas in the Rick Wetsel, Ph.D., Immunology Lab.

Arpan De, Ph.D.
Research Scientist

Arpan De received his bachelor and master of science degrees in microbiology from University of Calcutta, India, and worked on a research project funded by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India to investigate novel coordination metal complexes as potential anti-leishmanial agents. He moved to Bowling Green State University, Ohio, where he received his master’s degree in biological sciences in 2015 with research focus on understanding the role of rho-family guanosine triphosphatase effectors in filopodia dynamics. Arpan earned his Ph.D. in biological sciences from Bowling Green State University in 2019 where his graduate research focused on exploring circadian clock regulation of epithelial-mesenchymal and mesenchymal-epithelial transitions in glioma and breast cancer cells. He joined the McCarty Lab in October 2019.

Tae Hoon Lee, Ph.D.
Research Investigator

Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Yonsei University, South Korea, where his graduate work focused on the functional analysis of proteins controlling mitochondrial morphology in Caenorhabditis elegans. During his postdoctoral fellow and research associate at the Houston Methodist Research Institute and Baylor College of Medicine, he performed research in various fields — immunology, cancer imaging, neuroregeneration and nephrology. Dr. Lee joined the McCarty Lab in May 2024, and his current research focuses on therapeutically targeting brain metastases and endothelial blood-brain barrier integrity by activating endothelial gene expression.

Ali Mohammed Pirani
Data Scientist

Ali earned his Master of Science degree in bioinformatics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Before transitioning into bioinformatics, he worked as a software engineer specializing in web application development. He later joined Dr. Evan Snitkin's lab at the University of Michigan, where he developed computational analysis pipelines to study the epidemiology and evolution of drug-resistant microbes, integrating genomics, metagenomics and clinical phenotypic data from large cohort studies. Currently, as a data scientist, Ali focuses on integrating bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing with spatial transcriptomics to study glioblastoma, aiming to uncover tumor-intrinsic and microenvironmental signatures driving tumor heterogeneity and evolution. By applying spatial statistical models and machine learning approaches, he investigates cell-cell communication and neuronal interactions within the tumor microenvironment, with the goal of identifying prognostic markers and therapeutic targets for GBM progression and recurrence.

Tao Wang, M.D., Ph.D.
Research Scientist

Dr. Wang received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Fudan University in 2018. He has been working as an attending neurosurgeon in China for about 10 years. Dr. Wang’s research has been focused on USP8 mutations in Cushing’s disease and GPR68 in ischemic stroke. With a strong interest in glioblastoma research, Dr. Wang joined the McCarty Lab in June 2023. 

Santiago A. Forero
Research Investigator

Santiago A. Forero received his bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences from Texas A&M University, where he began his research as an undergraduate researcher in the Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics Lab of Dr. Gil Rosenthal. He went on to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees at Cornell University as part of Dr. Alex Ophir’s neuroethology lab, where his research focused on uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying social behavior in the socially monogamous prairie vole. Santiago joined the McCarty Lab in January 2024 and will contribute to the lab’s ongoing research of characterizing neurovascular development and physiology. 

Yan Wang, M.S.
Research Scientist

Yan Wang received her master’s degree in cell and molecular biology from The University of Texas at Austin. In addition, she received her master’s degree in genetics and bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Sichuan University in China. Before joining the McCarty Lab in March 2026, Yan worked in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, followed by Genetics at UT MD Anderson for 20 years. Yan has studied the genetics and molecular mechanisms of integrin-based cell-ECM adhesion in regulation of epidermal morphology, the mechanisms of epidermis aging, the conserved role of insulin receptor in modulation of nociceptive hypersensitivity in sensory neurons, the neurobiology and molecular mechanisms of opioid analgesia and genes and signaling pathways involved in wound closure using fruit flies, mice and cell culture systems. She is currently working on extracellular matrix adhesion and signaling pathways that drive brain tumor growth and progression.

Lalit Kishore Ahirwar, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Ahirwar received his Bachelor of Science (B.S., 2015) and Master of Science (M.S., 2017) degrees in microbiology from Dr. Harisingh Gour Central University, Sagar, India. In 2022, he earned his Ph.D. in ocular biology from L. V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India, affiliated with Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. During his doctoral studies, he investigated host-pathogen interactions of Pythium insidiosum in corneal infections. In 2023, he moved to The University of Texas Health Science Center Houston, where he studied neurovascular interactions during brain development. Specifically, his research focused on the influence of cerebral vasculature on prenatal and postnatal cortical development, as well as its role in shaping adult cortical architecture in the mouse brain. In 2026, he joined the McCarty Lab, where he is currently studying the role of extracellular matrix proteins in the growth and invasion of malignant brain tumors. Beyond his academic work, he enjoys traveling, singing Hindi music and reciting poetry.