2018 Travel awardee biosHiba Alsaffar Vashendriya Hira Vashendriya received her MSc in Biomedical Sciences from The University of Amsterdam in Prof. Ron van Noorden's laboratory, where she focused on understanding the similarities between hematopoietic stem cell niches in human bone marrow and glioma stem cell niches in human glioblastoma brain tumors. Mohammed Khurshed Tirthadipa Pradhan-Sundd Tirthadipa Pradhan-Sundd is a postdoctoral fellow in Paul Monga’s lab at University of Pittsburgh. She attended University of Calcutta where she graduated with a BS and MS in Zoology. She has received her MPhil degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Sheffield. She has obtained her PhD from Simon Fraser University under the guidance of Esther Verheyen. Her PhD work was focused on understanding post translational regulations of Wnt signaling pathway. At the Monga lab she is focused to understand the role and regulation of blood bile barrier in liver development and pathophysiology. A second focus has been on the study of sickle cell disease induced hepatic insults. She is a member of ASIP and HCS since 2015. Robert Van Sciver 2018 ASIP/HCS Awardee Bios
Michele Alves is currently a post-doctoral fellow in Department of Pathology under supervision of Dr. Jose Otero. Her laboratory investigates morphology and neuroanatomy focused to understand relation between cognitive decline and brain irradiation used to treat brain cancers. In this context, she has been studying role of cyclin A2 in the rRNA regulation and aging hippocampus. Abnormalities in RNA dynamics can trigger deleterious process and accumulation of misfolded proteins which leads to neurodegenerative disorders. In her Ph.D. thesis, she studied the TGF beta pathway contribution to the adipose tissue remodeling in cancer cachexia. She obtained her Ph.D. and Master’s degree in Sciences, both with concentrated area in Cell and Tissue Biology, from the University of Sao Paulo, the most prestigious University in Brazil. She has a full degree in Physical Education with teacher training from the Metropolitan United Faculty (FMU), a degree similar to Rehabilitation Sciences in the United States.
Dr. Jennifer Borowsky initially trained as an Anatomical pathologist in Australia with a special interest in Gastrointestinal Pathology. Subsequent to completion of her training and attainment of Fellowship with the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) she chose to begin graduate-level PhD training to gain a solid experimental grounding for her chosen career as a clinician-scientist. After completion of her first year of PhD training, which has culminated in a first author, peer-reviewed academic paper in Modern Pathology, one of the leading pathology journals, she joined Shuji Ogino’s Molecular Pathological Epidemiology (MPE) laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Her research area of focus is the development of a novel and ground-breaking technique for analyzing the tumor immune microenvironment in colorectal cancer. Dr. Borowsky’s approach utilizes a multiplexed, immunofluorescence-based assay to interrogate the T cell populations in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples of archival human colorectal cancer tissue. Coupled with a machine-learning algorithm that she trained for automatic image segmentation and cellular phenotyping and quantification, her research is anticipated to leverage extensive data which in combination with whole exome sequencing data and extensive epidemiological data from large cohorts (the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study) is expected to produce high impact and timely contribution to the field of tumor immunology. Additionally, Dr. Borowsky has drawn from her pathology expertise to make substantial contributions to a breadth of research including the relationship of Bifidobacterium and colorectal cancer morphology, the role of YAP1 in regulating the tumor immune response, and analyzing anthropomorphic variables such as body mass index (BMI) in relation to colorectal cancer morphology and molecular features.
Dr. Hanson is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC) under the mentorship of Drs. Bruce McManus and Michael Seidman. His research is focused on the pathogenesis of heart failure with a particular emphasis on personalizing myocarditis diagnostics. Dr. Hanson earned his Bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin and completed a PhD in viral modulation of host during the pathogenesis of myocarditis in the department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC. He is the recipient of the 2017 Sarah Knight Fellowship from the Myocarditis Foundation. In addition to his research, Dr. Hanson is also actively engaged as the acting laboratory manager of the Cardiovascular Tissue Registry at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, BC, a UBC affiliated biobank repository of cardiovascular tissue specimens to be used for research purposes. Dr. Hanson anticipates starting an independent and collaborative tranlastional research career focused on cardiovascular diseases. Nguyen Phuong Khanh Le Nguyen Phuong Khanh Le is currently a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Drs. Baljit Singh and Volker Gerdts at the University of Saskatchewan (Canada). Khanh is also a member of the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP), American Association of Anatomists (AAA), American Association of Veterinary Anatomists (AAVA), and Integrated Training Program in Infectious Diseases, Food Safety and Public Policy (ITrap-One Health). She obtained a DVM from Nong Lam University (Vietnam), a BA. in English Linguistics and Literature from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam), and an MSc. from the University of Saskatchewan (Canada). Khanh’s academic awards include consolation prize at the 5th National Scientific and Technological Conference in Vietnam, 2nd place poster in Cell/Tissue pathobiology, 3rd place poster in Immunology in scientific competitions at the University of Saskatchewan. She has also received several travel awards from ASIP, AAA, AAVA, Nong Lam University, Kobe University, and the University of Saskatchewan for going to several scientific meetings. Chao Xu Chao Xu is currently at the University of Connecticut for postdoctoral research. My mentor is Professor Li Wang (http://wanglab.pnb.uconn.edu/). Yulan Zhao Dr. Yulan Zhao is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. in Cell Biology from Zhejiang University. Currently, her research is focus on Non-coding RNAs in alcohol induced fatty liver. She is taking advantage of gene knockout mouse models and liver injury models to understand the regulatory roles of alcohol induced non-coding RNAs. Dr. Zhao is an expert in investigating protein post-translation modifications and is experienced in cell signaling pathway studies. Her research findings have been published in several peer-reviewed journals. |