Lab members

Lynn Hlatky, PhD. Director.
 
Lynn is the founding director of the Center of Cancer Systems Biology. She joined the Medical Center from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Department of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School. The mission of the Center of Cancer Systems Biology is based on the appreciation that carcinogenesis evolves at multiple levels ranging from molecular signalings to cellular and tissue interactions, and that only by their concerted study can the entire process be understood. Accordingly, the Center has recruited people with expertise in clinical oncology, cancer biology, molecular biology, radiobiology, bioengineering, mathematics, informatics and computational biology. Dr. Hlatky also directs a multi-institutional NASA Specialized Center of Research Program, the mission of which is to investigate radiation-induced carcinogenesis of solid tumors. This Program involves active participation from investigators at University of CA Berkeley, Harvard Medical School and the University of Heidelberg.
 
Research interests:

• Carcinogenesis and tumor growth dynamics
• Radiobiology
• Translational studies on microenvironmental influence
• DNA damage and repair
• Tumor angiogenesis
• Tumor-cell fusion

Philip Hahnfeldt, PhD. Senior Investigator.
Associate Professor of Medicine
 
Phil joined the CCSB from the Dana-Faber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. He is an MIT-trained mathematician who has specialized in cancer systems analysis. He directs a project under the Center's NSCOR Program to form composite models of carcinogenesis risk incorporating the biological and mathematical studies of the other collaborators.
 
Research interests:

• Cancer growth dynamics
• Radiotherapeutic and chemotherapeutic dosing
• DNA damage and repair
• Tumor angiogenesis modeling
• Gene interaction networks

Kashi Javaherian, PhD. Senior Investigator.
Associate Professor of Medicine
 
Before joining the CCSB, Kashi was associated with the late Dr. Judah Folkman at Childrens Hospital for many years. His main focus of research centered around two angiogenic inhibitors, angiostatin and endostatin; two proteins first discovered in Folkman's laboratory. He has been the senior author or coauthor on a number of major publications dealing with these inhibitors. In their recent article, Kashi along with Tong-Young Lee and Amir Abdollahi, have presented the most up to date illustration of the angiostatin mechanism (Blood, 2009, 114, 1987-1998). Accordingly, angiostatin targets a number of proteins in mitochondria of endothelial cells. In parallel with this event, recruitment of inflammatory immune cells to tumor is reduced and expression of extracellular matrix protein thrombospondin is increased. A detailed analysis to elucidate the contributions of these different compartments is being undertaken in his laboratory.
 
Research interests:

• Structure, Function and Mechanism of angiogenic inhibitors Angiostatin and Endostatin
• Developing new antiangiogenic peptides and proteins based on identification of specific proteins responsible for angiogenesis in cancer

Amir Abdollahi, M.D., PhD. Associate Investigator
Assistant Professor of Medicine.
 
Amir joined the CCSB from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), University of Heidelberg Medical School, where he was head of translational research at the Departments of Radiation Oncology. With Dr. Hlatky, he has worked to establish a multidisciplinary research consortium at CCSB bringing together molecular, bioinformatics, and clinical expertise from the DKFZ/Heidelberg University and the Folkman laboratory at Harvard Medical School, where Amir maintains an adjunct affiliation.
 
Research interests:

• Systematic transcriptional and functional analysis of cancer with focus on
  • Tumor <=> microenvironment communication
  • Tumor-Angiogenesis (tumor vasculature, i.e., endogenous angiogenesis inhibitors)
  • Tumor-Fibrogenesis (tumor stroma, 'interstitium')
  • Tumor-Metastasis
• Role of the tumor- microenvironment interplay in acquired resistance to conventional therapies (radiotherapy and chemotherapy) as well as to novel 'targeted' anticancer agents (e.g. antiangiogenic therapy).
• Preclinical identification of novel therapeutic targets and clinical evaluation of identified targets
• Identification of potential biomarkers (e.g. gene/protein signatures) of therapeutic response

Klaus Becker, PhD. Associate Investigator
Assistant Professor of Medicine

Klaus joined the CCSB in September, 2009 from the Department of Cellular Biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical in Worcester where he worked with human embryonic stem cells.
 
Research interests:

• Cell growth, cell cycle, and tumorigenesis
• Stem cell differentiation, dedifferentiation, and stem cell niche
• Transcription, nuclear architecture, and microRNA
• Intercellular communication and microenvironment

Heiko Enderling, PhD. Associate Investigator
Assistant Professor of Medicine
 
Heiko joined the CCSB from the University of Dundee, Scotland, where he received his PhD on 'Mathematical Modeling of Breast Cancer Development, Treatment and Recurrence' in 2006.
 
Research interests:

• Basic cancer cell kinetics in tumor dormancy and progression
• Tumor morphological evolution; self-metastatic phenotype
• Mathamtical Modeling of stem cell mutations, tumorigenesis, tumor growth and invasion
• Irradiation response and radiotherapeutic design
• Tissue architecture evolution
• Invadopodia formation and cancer-microenvironment interaction
• Computational simulations and high-dimensional visualization of mathematical models

Giannoula Klement, M.D. Associate Investigator
Assistant Professor of Medicine
 
Giannoula joined the CCSB in May, 2009 from Harvard Medical School where she worked as a pediatric oncologist.
 
Research interests:

• benign vascular tumors
• vascular anomalies and anti-angiogenic therapies
• cancer and angiogenesis biomarkers

Nava Almog, PhD. Senior Research Associate
Instructor of Medicine
 
Nava joined the CCSB from the Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School where she holds a research fellowship in Surgery. She obtained her PhD in Molecular Cell Biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel in 2000.
 
Research interests:

• molecular mechanisms and pathways that underly tumor dormancy
• experimental models of human tumor dormancy in animals
• genome expression profiles analysis

Afshin Beheshti, PhD. Senior Research Associate.
Instructor of Medicine
 
Afshin joined the CCSB from the Forsyth Institute where he was working on oral bacteria for 3 years. He obtained his PhD in Biophysics from Florida State University on 'Modeling DNA Behavior in Gel Networks' in 2002.
 
Research interests:

• Double Strand Breakage/Repair in tumor populations and in the tumor-microenvironment
• Imaging of DNA repair dynamics
• Tumor-cell fusion
• Adult Stem Cells and relation to tumor growth
• HZE radiation response in tumors and tumor microenvironment

David A. Goukassian, M.D., PhD. Associate investigator
Associate Professor of Medicine
 
David joined the CCSB from the Department of Dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine where he is head of the Translational Research Unit. His current research work is heading towards development of novel treatment modalities for various UV- and other environmental carcinogen-induced human tumors including, but not limited to skin, breast, prostate and lung cancers. His work is also directed towards improvement of the age-associated decreases in DNA repair capacity.
 
Research interests:

• DNA Damage and Repair
• Photobiology, Aging and Photoaging
• Skin Pigmentation
• Tumor Growth, Development, Invasion and Metastasis
• Tumor angiogenesis
• Tumor Prevention and Therapeutics
• Tumor Stem Cells
• Animal Models of Human Cancers

George E. Parris, PhD. Associate Investigator
Adjunct Professor of Medicine
 
George joined the center in 2009. Most of his career has been as an employee or consultant to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Energy. His work has centered on cancer risk assessment based on environmental exposures to chemicals or radiation. He also holds an adjunct appointment for Johns Hopkins University where he teaches courses in the environmental science and policy curriculum. Over the last few years, he has expanded his activity to a study of cancer from which the risk assessment methodology must follow. He is particularly interested in cell-cell fusion as an important step in the evolution (progression) of cancer. Cell-cell fusion is particularly interesting because it provides a mechanism for rapid (sexual) evolution of cancers, which largely circumvents the need for immortal cells in the cancer (i.e., cancer stem cells). Cell-cell fusion is frequently catalyzed by viruses and other intracellular micro-organisms. Cell-cell fusion also explains the observations that many tumors (neoplasia) are initially diploid, evolve to tetraploid and then become aggressive metastasize concurrent with evolving to aneuploid karyotypes. Many of tehse features are controlled by cell surface glycoproteins and glycans.
 
Research interests:

• Cell-cell fusion
• Cell-virus fusion
• How cancer cells overcome Muller's ratchet
• Glycans and glycoproteins
• Cancer risk assessment
• Methods of blocking cell fusion

Roberto Pola, MD, PhD. Associate Investigator
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine
 
Roberto is currently an Associate Investigator at the Center of Cardiovascular Research and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He also has an adjunct appointment at the Center of Cancer Systems Biology of Tufts University School of Medicine.
 
Research interests:

• Molecular and cellular mechanisms of angiogenesis and vasculogenesis
• stem cells and tissue regeneration
• genetics of cardiovascular diseases

Rainer K. Sachs, PhD.
Adjunct Professor of Medicine
 
Ray is Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the CCSB and Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He directs a project under the Center's NSCOR Program to quantitatively analyze chromosome-level effects of space radiations on living cells.
 
Research interests:

• Modeling carcinogenesis due to ionizing radiation
• Radiation risk estimation for astronauts on extended missions
• Modeling second cancers after tumor radiotherapy
• Modeling radiation formation of chromosome aberrations
• Modeling large-scale geometry of chromatin during cell cycle interphase

Christian Schwager, PhD.
Adjunct Professor of Medicine
 
Christian Schwager is Head of Biocomputing and Bioinformatics in the Department of Molecular Radiooncology (MRO), at the University of Heidelberg, Medical School, and in the Center of Cancer Systems Biology, SEMC, Tufts Univ. School of Medicine, where he oversees analysis of high-throughput molecular data. In collaboration with the CCSB, he is continuing development of the comprehensive and freely-available bioinformatics resource at http://www.oncoexpress.org.
 
Research interests:

• OncoExpress

Alex Shtifman, PhD. Associate Investigator
Assistant Professor of Neurology
 
Alex Shtifman, Ph.D., employs sophisticated imaging technologies to study how calcium moves in and out of cells, including in a model of inclusion body myositis.
 
Research interests:

• calcium signalling in tumor progression
• muscle disorders
• neurological disorders

Mahdokht Behravan, PhD. Research Associate.
 
Mahdokht joins the CCSB, from the Medical Imaging Group in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics from Michigan State University, Dept of Physics and Astronomy, in 2005. IAEA Fellowships include the KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy.
 
Research interests:

• Carcinogenesis and tumor growth dynamics
• Radiation carcinogenesis
• DNA damage and repair
• Tumor angiogenesis
• Nanotechnology in diagnostics and therapy

Sophie Domhan, MD. Research Associate.
 
Sophie joined the CCSB in 2008 from University of Heidelberg Medical School where she received her MD, and is trained in Internal Medicine (Department of Nephrology).
 
Research interests:

• Immunosuppressive drugs and cancer
• Tumor-microenvironment and angiogenesis
• Epithelial-mesenchymal transition

Swati Girdhani, PhD. Senior Research Associate.
 
Swati joined the CCSB from the Indian Atomic Research Centre, where she received her PhD in Radiation Biology.
Research interests:

• Radiation biology
• DNA damage and repair
• Proton irradiation response
• Tumor response to anti-angiogenic therapy

Shiva Kalinga, PhD. Senior Research Associate
 
Dr. Kalinga received his Ph.D. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland. His thesis involved studying the kinetic and mechanistic functions between hemeproteins and peroxynitrite. Following this, he joined Dedon's Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his post-doctoral training on genomic instability and cancer where he developed methods to map DNA damage across entire genome. His research currently focuses on elucidating cellular and molecular pathways leading to prostate cancer progression with an emphasis on cell-cell interaction. His main interests in the Hlatky's Laboratory include determining the cellular interaction between prostate cells and prostate cancer cells with respect to its growth, invasion and metastasis.
 
Research interests:

• DNA and RNA damage
• Tumor growth and development
• Tumor regeneration

Bianling Liu, MD. Senior Research Associate.
 
Bianling joined the CCSB in 2008. She obtained her MD in China, and persued postdoctoral studies at the Weizmann Institute of Sciences, the University of Minnessota, and Brigham & Women Hospital, Boston.
 
Research interests:

• understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms underlining the stem cell pluripotency, self- renewal, migration and homing and testing the possible stem cell based approaches for tissue repair and regenerative medicine, her study focuses on adult stem cell, especially hematopoietic stem cell ( HSC), mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPC)
• investigating the role of cancer stem cell on tumor initiation , migration and metastasis and develop effective theraputics for caner cure; identification of CD44 as a biomarker for cancer and cancer stem cell function

  Lili Ma, MD, MS. Postdoctoral Fellow.
 
Lili joined CCSB in Aug, 2007 from Shanghai Institutes of Biological Sciences (SIBS), China, where she was working on immulogical study. She received her MD and MS from China. She was working on tumor molecular biology as research technician until 2008 and now is persuing her postdoctoral studies
 
Research interests:

• Tumor and senescence
• Tumor angiogenesis and resistance to antiangiogenic therapy
• Tumor molecular biology

  Tyson McDonald, PhD. Postdoctoral Fellow.
 
Tyson joined the CCSB in 2009 from the University of California, Los Angeles where he received his Ph.D. in Radiation Biology from the Biomedical Physics Program. His thesis examined the impact of ionizing radiation on the Nrf2/Antioxidant Response Element pathway and also assisted in high throughput screening for novel radiation modifying agents.
 
Research interests:

• Radiation Biology
• Delayed effects of ionizing radiation
• Radiation-induced neoplastic and malignant transformation
• Low-dose exposure and carcinogenesis

  Charles Morton, PhD. Postdoctoral Fellow.
 
Charles joined the CCSB in 2009 from MIT, where he received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Systems Toxicology and Pharmacology from the Department of Biological Engineering. His thesis examined the metabolism and pharmacokinetics of programmable genotoxicants targeting metastatic prostate cancer.
 
Research interests:

• Kinetics and mechanism of mitochondrial DNA damage and repair
• Role of metabolism in the regulation of fusion and fission of mitochondria
• Autocrine and paracrine signaling of stem cells and cancer
• Mathematical modeling of the tumor-microenvironment milieu

Maoyun Sun, MD, PhD. Research Associate.
 
Maoyun joined the CCSB in 2009. He received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Fudan University Shanghai Medical College, China in 2006..
 
Research interests:

• tumor angiogenesis
• epithelial-mesenchymal transition
• tumor molecular biology

Erik Fung, MD,PhD. Associate Fellow.
 

 
Research interests:

• tbc

	Glenn Stern, M.B.A., Administrative Director of Laboratory Research.   Glenn is the Administrative Director of Laboratory Research for the Center for Cancer Systems Biology. He brings more than 15 years of experience in research administration. He comes from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he was the Medical Oncology Department's Administrative Director for Research Laboratory Operations. He has been the administrator responsible for numerous NIH and other federal grants (including several program project and SPORE grants), as well as many foundation grants and grateful patient donation funds.   Tel: tbc     Mail: tbc
	Clare Lamont Research Coordinator and NSCOR Outreach Director.   Clare is the Administrative Coordinator for the NASA Specialized Center of Research. She also directs the outreach program for the NSCOR program.   Tel: 617.779.6571     Mail: clare.lamont [at] caritaschristi.org
	Cassie Enayo Administrative Assistant.   Tel: 617.789.2995     Mail: cassedra.enayo [at] caritaschristi.org

	Michael Peluso Laboratory Manager.   B.S. Biological Sciences - Cell and Developmental Biology University of Rochester (2008)   Tel: 617.779.6544     Mail: michael.peluso [at] caritaschristi.org
	Abdo Abou-Slaybi Research Technician.   B.A. Biology, College of the Holy Cross   Tel: tbc     Mail: Abdo.Abou-Slaybi [at] caritaschristi.org
	Zachary Anaya Research Technician.   B.Sc. Neuroschience, Dalhousie University   Tel: tbc     Mail: zachary.anaya [at] caritaschristi.org
	Daniel Seth Greenstein Part-time Research Technician.   B.A. Psychology, Middlebury College   Tel: tba     Mail: daniel.greenstein [at] caritaschristi.org
	Annie Kang Research Technician.   B.A. in Biology, Boston University (2007)   Tel: 617.779.6549     Mail: annie.kang [at] caritaschristi.org
	Olga Kiner Research Technician.   M.S. Molecular Biology, Bar-Ilan University, Israel B.Sc. Medical Science, Hadassah College, Israel   Tel: tba     Mail: olga.kiner [at] caritaschristi.org
	Heather Szelag Research Technician.   B.S. Biophysics/Structural Biology University of Connecticut (2008)   Tel: 617.779.6541     Mail: heather.szelag [at] caritaschristi.org
	Zili Tang Ph.D. Candidate.   M.Sc Biotechnology, Hochschule Mannheim, Germany M.D Chengdu University of TCM, China   Tel: 617.779.6539     Mail: zili.tang [at] caritaschristi.org
	Janusz Weremowicz, Research Technician II.   Foreign graduated DVM. LAT-G technologist. Janusz's field of interest is microsurgery and care of our animal colony. Tel: 617.779.6560     Mail: janusz.weremowicz [at] caritaschristi.org

	Derek Park Weston High Summer student Derek was a summer student in our lab for two years, where he was involved in different projects with his mentor Heiko Enderling. Projects: - statistical analysis of simulation results for tumor radiotherapy - developing an algorithm to calculate the concave hull of a tumor cell cluster [more information]
	Therese Dane Summer Student Therese is a Biology Major at Rochester Institute of Technology.
	Mia Edgar Summer Student Mia is a PreMed at Boston College.
	Blake Wang Summer Student Blake is a summer student from Weston High School.

Marge

Collaborators / adjunct members (NSCOR)

	Jeffrey Nickerson, PhD. University of Massachusetts   Research description: Cells in different types of tumors and at different stages in malignant progression have characteristic nuclear changes and these are important in clinical diagnosis and staging. The structure of the nucleus is partly determined by patterns of gene expression. Conversely, the architecture of the nucleus is a major determinant of those patterns of gene expression. These reciprocal relationships might contribute to advancing nuclear alterations in cancer, driving further tumor progression. There are multiple mechanisms by which altered nuclear structure can dysregulate the faithful replication and expression of the genome. For example, attachments of chromatin to the nuclear lamina participate in the formation of peripheral heterochromatin, silencing large regions of the genome. In the interior of the nucleus, attachments of chromatin to a fibrogranular nuclear matrix scaffolding facilitate efficient transcription as well as accurate DNA replication and repair. The architecture of the nucleus is also dependent on tissue architecture and attachments to a basement membrane, both of which are also regulators of gene expression, and both of which are radically altered in tumors. We propose that key alterations associated with tumor progression may manifest through nuclear structural alterations, suggesting they may be important determinants of clinical cancer risk.
	Jorg Kleef, MD Associate Professsor of Medicine   Jorg is currently senior consultant surgeon at the Department of Surgery, Technical University Munich, directed by Professor Helmut Friess, a world leader in pancreatic cancer diagnosis, treatment, and research. Pancreatic cancer is an extremely aggressive malignancy that is virtually therapy-resistant and has therefore one of the worst prognoses of all human cancers. Together with CCSB, Jorg is systematically investigating pancreatic cancer development and progression using cutting edge proteomics, transcriptomics and functional genomics approaches. His major interest in the field of pancreatic cancer are: Research interests: development of novel surgical techniques tissue banking and highthroughput analysis of patients specimen design of clinical trials and molecular monitoring of cancer patients development of preclinical (animal) models mechanisms of therapy resistance tumor microenvironment
	Douglas Schneider, MD   Douglas is a pathologist at Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medica Center and Tufts University School of Medicine.
1933-2008	Judah Folkman, M.D. Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery and Professor of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School.   In Memorium: On January 14, Judah Folkman died unexpectedly en route to a conference on Angiogenesis. His passing is an immense loss to those who knew and worked with him as well as to the advancement of science. We will greatly miss his scientific insight, unbounded enthusiasm and friendship.

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Alumni

	Roslyn Whitley, Research Technician.   Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University Ruth Grau Zises Women's Health Student Research Award, 2007 'analyzing the effects/side effects of cabergoline on a neuroendocrine abnormality of the pituitary gland that disproportionately affects women'
	Raktima Raychowdhury, PhD. Senior Research Associate.   Raktima joined the CCSB from MGH, Harvard Medical School in 2007.   Research interests: role of radiation and microenvironment in carcinogenesis molecular biology of cancer
	Mohsen Hosseinkhani, PhD. Research Associate.   Mohsen joined the CCSB in 2008. Research interests: Characterization of cancer stem cells in different tumors and analysis of their stemness properties Analysis of cancer stem cell differentiation potential Developing specific therapies that target cancer stem cells that improve survival and quality of life of cancer patients, especially for sufferers of metastatic disease
	Baili Chen, PhD. Research Associate.   Baili joined the CCSB in 2008. She obtained her PhD from Texas Tech University in 2005 for her thesis entitled 'Mathematical Models of Motion Detection in the Fly's Visual Cortex'. Research interests: Mathematical modeling of multi-stage carcinogenesis Mathematical modeling of tumor microenvironment and angiogenesis
	Jaclyn Nestor Research Technician.   Tel: 617.779.6541     Mail: tbc: jaclyn.nestor [at] caritaschristi.org
	Armine Matevossian Research Technician.
	Aaron Burg Research Technician.
	Matthew Perkins Research Technician.