News & Media
News and Accolades
Mar 2025: Madeline Ansley received a travel award from Rice University to present at AACR 2025 in Chicago.
Mar 2025: Allen Shen's flash talk won 1st place at the Graduate School Cancer Biology Program Spring Symposium
Mar 2025: Khalil Kasm's flash talk won an award at the MD Anderson Education Week competition.
Dec 2024: Madeline Ansley won first prize at the UT Health 30th Annual Neuroscience Symposium.
Jun 2024: Khalil Kasm received the Daniel Benedict Gazan Award in Sarcoma Research Excellence Award.
May 2024: Aishani Gargapati graduated from Rice and won a Distinction in Research (Neuroscience) award.
May 2024: Alesandra Echeandía Marrero was awarded an NIH T-32 training grant.
May 2024: Aishani Gargapati was accepted into the NCI Cancer Research Interns Summer Program.
May 2024: Ava Hamblett was awarded a summer internship in the Impurity Assays Group at Pfizer in Bothell, WA.
Talks and Presentations
May 2025: Two of our undergraduate students presented the work they completed in the Pan Lab this spring, guided by bench and faculty mentors. These end-of-semester presentations allow students to display and explain their work to the entire department of Symptom Research, the Pan Lab's home department, while providing a record of their work for their school programs. Additionally, students get to practice their public speaking skills in front of an audience of their peers and others.
Madeline Ansley, an undergraduate psychology major who is on a pre-medicine track, is working under the supervision of her mentor Khalil Kasm. Madeline presented on MPNST-induced pain in mice as a preclinical model for translational research and drug discovery. Nathan Chen, an undergraduate computer and cognitive science major who is working with Momo Harris, presented on his work on neurofibromatosis 1.
April 2025: Aishani Gargapati and Madeline Ansley presented posters at the 2025 American Association for Cancer Research (AARC) Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.
March 2025: Dr. Khalil Kasm presented on the crosstalk between sensory neuronal activity and tumor cells and how it promotes malignancy and cancer pain at the 14th Annual Gulf Coast Consortia Translational Pain Research Conference in Houston, Texas.
November 2024: Dr. Khalil Kasm presented a talk on the crosstalk between sensory neuronal activity and tumor cells, which promotes malignancy and cancer pain, at the 2024 Society for Neuro-Oncology annual meeting in Houston, Texas. Also from the Pan Lab, Drs. Khushboo Irshad, Anand Singh, Benjamin Aghoghovwia and Khalil Kasm presented posters of their research.
August 2024: Dr. Benjamin Aghoghovwia presented his poster on germline mutations and chemotherapy-induced oligodendrocyte deficits and cognitive dysfunction in neurofibromatosis type 1 at the 2024 Glia in Health & Disease meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.
July 2024: Dr. Benjamin Aghoghovwia presented an update on the Pan Lab's research at the Gilbert Family Foundation's Vision Restoration Initiative meeting in Detroit, Michigan. The Gilbert Family Foundation Vision Restoration Initiative grant was awarded to the Pan Lab in 2022 to investigate optic nerve oligodendroglial dynamics and myelination in neurofibromatosis type 1.
July 2024: Dr. Anand Singh discussed a newly established preclinical model of pediatric chemobrain in his oral presentation at the 21st International Symposium on Pediatric Neuro-Oncology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The model helps investigators understand the mechanisms of long-term neurocognitive side effects of brain tumor chemotherapy during childhood and may eventually identify prevention and treatment targets in pediatric cancer. This work is supported by the Kleberg Foundation.
April 2024: Madeline Ansley presented her research at the Rice Undergraduate Neuroscience Symposium held at the Rice campus in Houston, Texas.
April 2024: Madeline Ansley presented her research at the Rice Undergraduate Neuroscience Symposium held at the Rice campus in Houston, Texas.
April 2024: Nathan Bui and Aishani Gargapati presented their research at the Rice University Natural Science Undergraduate Symposium in Houston, Texas. Aishani won the Best Poster prize in the cancer biology, prevention, and therapy section.
April 2024: Aishani Gargapati presented her research at the 2024 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, California.
March 2024: Dr. Khalil ali Ahmad Kasm won the Best Poster award at MD Anderson's Trainee Research Day.
February 2024: Drs. Anand Singh, Benjamin Aghoghovwia, Khushboo Irshad, and Khalil Ali Ahmad Kasm presented at the 2024 Cancer Neuroscience Symposium, Houston, Texas.
November 2023: Dr. Khushboo Irshad presented her research at the Society for Neuro-Oncology 28th Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada.
November 2023: Dr. Khalil Ali Ahmad Kasm presented his cancer neuroscience work at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) annual meeting in Washington D.C.