Cancer Ecology Center team members

The scientists working in the Cancer Ecology Center are dedicated to understanding the ecology of cancer, how cancer metastasizes and evolves therapy resistance and developing new therapies for patients suffering from cancer.

Ramakrishna Prasad Alur, PH.D.

Lab Manager

Ramakrishna oversees the day - to day running of the lab.

Kevin truskowski
Ph.d. candidate, cmm

Kevin studies the mechanisms of how cancer cells exit the mitotic cycle and enter an endocycle.

Michael loycano
Ph.D. candidate, CMM

Michael is studying the tole of myc in cell cycle regulation of endocycling cells.

Venetia Florou, M.D.
Postdoctoral fellow

Venetia is studying the biological underpinnings of endocycling cancer cells and is interested in developing new therapies.

Anna Gonye
Ph.D. candidate, CMM

Anna is investigating how the polyploid DNA is organized in endocycling cells.

Bowen Wang
ph.d. candidate, Pathobiology

Bowen is studying the biological underpinnings of endocycling cancer cells

Samhita Vitta
PH.D. Candidate Pathobiology

Samhita is studying the biological underpinnings of endocycling cancer cells

Louis Rolle

Research Technician

Louis is supporting the lab on various projects, including the longitudinal imaging of cancer cells.

PAST MEMBERS

Haley Axelrod

Amber DeGroot

Liang Dong

Elizabeth Ferrer

Kengo Horie

Laurie Kostecka

Bryan Lee

Sabrina Mendez

Kayla Myers

Shilpa Nair

Prince Parsana

Ella Sanvee

Gonzalo Torga

Ken Valkenburg

Emma van der Toom

Maggie Yang

Jelani Zarif

Richard Zieran

Melvin li
ph.d. candidate, pharmacology

Melvin’s work focuses on mitochondrial structure and function in endocycling cell fate.

Luke Loftus
Ph.D. candidate, cmm

Luke is developing therapeutic strategies to target cancer cells.

Madison Purkerson

PH.D. Candidate

Pharmacology

Madison is exploring centrosomes as signaling platforms in cancer cells.

CHENILLE McCullum

RESEARCH TECHNICIAN

Chenille is supporting the lab on multiple projects, including testing therapeutics.