Members

CNI Committee members 

Cobi Heijnen, Ph.D.
Chair, Cancer Neuroscience Initiative
Professor and Chair, Symptom Research
Research aim: Understand the mechanisms of cancer-related cognitive deficits as a result of cancer and its treatment and to develop novel neurogenerative and pharmacological interventions to treat cognitive impairment.
Lab website

John de Groot, M.D.
Chair, Cancer Neuroscience Initiative
Professor and Chair ad interim, Neuro-Oncology
Lab website

Virginie Buggia-Prevot, Ph.D.
Institute Sr Research Scientist, Neurodegeneration Consort-NDC
Research aim: Identify and validate drug targets for the NDC drug discovery portfolio and develop therapies for cancer-related cognitive and neurological disorders.
Lab website 

Annemieke Kavelaars, Ph.D.
Professor, Symptom Research
Research aim: Identify protective and curative mechanism-based interventions for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and to understand the endogenous resolution pathways that prevent transition to chronic pain.
Lab website

Salahadin Abdi, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Pain Medicine

Shelli Kesler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Neuro-Oncology
Research aim: Examine neural mechanisms of cancer-related cognitive impairment and predict which patients are at risk for this syndrome using neuroimaging and machine learning.

Rebecca Harrison, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Neuro-Oncology

Sudhakar Tummala, M.D.
Professor, Neuro-Oncology

Patrick Dougherty, Ph.D.
Professor, Pain Medicine

Anil Sood, M.D.
Professor, Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine
Research aim: Understanding the effects of SNS and HPA related hormones on cancer growth and metastasis.

Richard De La Garza II, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychiatry
Research aim: Evaluation of psychiatric symptoms as a function of cancer diagnosis and therapy as well as the identification of neural substrates of reward processing, cue reactivity, and treatment response in substance abuse.
Faculty profile

Peter Grace, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Symptom Research
Research aim: Understand the neuroinflammatory mechanisms that drive chronic pain so that new treatment strategies can be developed.

Tamara Lacourt, Ph.D.
Program Coordinator, Cancer Neuroscience Initiative
Research aim: Understand the mechanisms of cancer-related symptoms and identify vulnerability factors for persistent experience of these symptoms

CNI Members

Jim Ray, Ph.D.
Head of research, Neurodegeneration Consortium-NDC
Research aim: Develop therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and chemotherapy-induced neurotoxicities
Faculty profile