Lab Members

Joseph McCarty, Ph.D. 
Principal investigator

Joseph McCarty, Ph.D., came to 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 Spinophillin 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 MD Anderson Cancer Center 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 MD Anderson, the Center for Stem Cell and Development Biology and the Cancer Metastasis Research Center.

Zhihua (Jenny) Chen, M.S., M.D. 
Research Investigator

Zhihua Chen received her master's degree in immunology from the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology and M.D. from the Third Military Medical University in China. From 2003-2009, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Her research focused on understanding the molecular mechanism of extracellular matrix molecules related to tumor invasion and metastasis. Prior to joining the McCarty Laboratory in 2014, she was as a research associate at the Institute of Molecular Medicine - UTHealth Science Center at Houston (2009-2014), where she was involved in projects related to neurodegenerative disorders. In particular, she used genetic and molecular approaches in Drosophila and cell culture systems to discover the disease-causative genes in Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

John Morales, B.S. 
Laboratory Coordinator

John Morales received his bachelor's degree in biochemistry from The University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to 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.

Nejla Yosef, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Nejla Yosef received her bachelor of science from University of Gezira, Sudan, and her master of science in biotechnology from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Nejla received her Ph.D. in molecular physiology and biophysics from Baylor College of Medicine in 2019, where she also worked as a senior research assistant to study blood nerve barrier endothelial cell biology and the mechanisms of neuromuscular inflammation. Her graduate research focused on understanding the pro-angiogenic and pro-neurogenic properties of yolk-sac-derived embryonic macrophages (microglia precursors) during development. Nejla joined the McCarty Lab in February 2019, and her current research focuses on understanding the molecular and functional properties of perivascular astrocyte and their contributions to blood brain barrier development and cancer.

Arpan De, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

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.