Meet the Team
Principal Investigator
Shailja Pathania, Ph.D
Associate Professor of Cancer Biology
Shailja Pathania completed her Ph.D at University of Texas at Austin and her postdoctoral training in Dr. David Livingston’s lab at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School in Boston.
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Postdoctoral Fellow
Erin Sellars
Erin Sellars is a Postdoctoral fellow in the lab. Her main research interests include:
- To study the role of the immune system in DNA damage accumulation in fallopian tube epithelial cells and the initiation of ovarian cancer.
- To evaluate the immune microenvironment of BRCA1 heterozygous tumors, precancerous lesions, and wild-type tumors to explore changes in the immune involvement throughout tumorigenesis.
- To isolate and manipulate a unique subset of precancerous mammary cells from BRCA1 heterozygous mice in order to develop novel preventative strategies.
Special Interests: Erin Enjoys singing (in choir), baking, crosswords, and word games.
PhD Students
Haohui Duan
Haohui Duan is a Ph.D candidate in the lab. Her main research interests include:
- To study the role of BRCA2, a tumor suppressor, in stalled replication fork repair and nucleotide excision repair.
- Identify genetic changes that drive tumorigenesis in BRCA2 mutation carriers by carrying out CRISPR based screen in BRCA2mut/+ and BRCA2+/+ breast epithelial cells.
- To study the role of CHK2, a tumor suppressor, in stalled replication fork repair and to study CHK2 haploinsufficiency in CHK2mut/+ and CHK2 +/+ cells harvested from skin biopsy.
Special interests: Haohui enjoys cooking delicious authentic Chinese food!
Kathy Situ
Kathy Situ is pursuing a Ph.D in the MCOB program. Her research interest includes:
- Identifying genes and factors that drive DNA damage repair mechanisms and defects which contribute to tumorigenesis, in the context of BRCA2 mutant driven breast cancer.
- Investigating the effect of environmental carcinogens like tobacco, alcohol and asbestos on replication stress induced BRCA2 mutant cancer.
Special interests: Kathy loves to hike and eat dairy when she’s not supposed to.
Jess Hao
Jess Hao is pursuing a PhD in Molecular Cellular and Organismal Biology. Her research interests includes:
- To study CHD1 loss in BRCA2 deficient male cancer
- To understand CHD1 loss and PARP inhibitor resistance in BRCA2 deficient male cancer
Special interests: Jess loves playing Total War: Warhammer and exploring new mods!
Tejasvene Ramesh
Tejasvene Ramesh is pursuing a PhD in Integrative Biosciences (Bioinformatics). She grew up in Singapore, where she completed her undergraduate degree in Life Sciences at the National University of Singapore. She got her Masters in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include:
- To investigate the underlying mechanisms of BRCA2 in breast tumorigenesis through the establishment of BRCA2 murine cancer models and single-cell RNA-seq Analysis.
- To understand how these mechanisms could assist in prevention of breast cancer and consider alternative noninvasive preventive methods against breast cancer.
Special interests: Tejasvene loves to travel, watch movies, read books, cook and eating scrumptious food.
Jaehark Hur
Jaehark Hur is a PhD candidate in the lab. His main research interest includes:
- To study how ovulation contributes to DNA damage, leading to ovarian cancer and investigate the molecular mechanisms of a certain post-transcriptional modification involved in DNA damage repair system.
Special Interest: Jaehark likes to workout, play baseball, and go ski, and snowboarding in the winter.
Undergraduate Students
Joshua Yang
Joshua is an aspiring MD/Ph.D and joined the lab Spring 2024. He is under the mentorship of Erin Sellars.
Special interests: Joshua enjoys sketching, reading novels, and eating good food.
Basim Naeem
Basim Naeem is an aspiring MD/PhD and an undergraduate student studying Biology with a minor in Cognitive Science. Basim joined lab through his participation in U54 Summer internship. He will be under the mentorship of Kathy Situ while assisting with her projects.
Special interest: Basim enjoys finding underground Desi music, playing basketball, and trying to get better at chess!
Jashia Sikder
Jashia Sikder is an aspiring MD/MPH and an undergraduate student studying Biology and Urban Public Health. She joined the lab Summer 2024 and is under the mentorship of Jaehark Hur.
Special interests: Jashia loves to get hotpot with her friends, listening to podcasts and music, and hanging out with her cats!
Ngan Nguyen
Ngan Nguyen is an aspiring PhD and an undergraduate student studying Biology. She joined the lab Summer 2024 and is under the mentorship of Tejasvene Ramesh.
Special interests: Ngan loves to go on nature walks and spend time with her family.
Information has been updated as of Summer 2024