Team

Julio Aguirre-Ghiso, PhD
Principal Investigator
Twitter: @JAguirreGhiso
Twitter: @CDTMI_Einstein
Research Interests
Cancer Dormancy & Tumor Microenvironment Institute (CDTMI)

Dr. Aguirre-Ghiso an Endowed Professor of Cell Biology and founding Director of the Cancer Dormancy and Tumor Microenvironment Institute at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center in New York City, where he co-directs the Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center and co-leads the Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis Program also at the Cancer Center. He is also a member of the Stem Cell Institute and Aging Research Institute at Einstein.

Previously, he was an Endowed Mount Sinai Chair of Cancer Biology in the Departments of Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology), Otolaryngology, and Oncological Sciences and Co-Leader of the Cancer Mechanisms Program at The Tisch Cancer Institute at Icahn School of Medicine School of Medicine in New York City, where he retains and Adjunct Professor position. He is also President of the Metastasis Research Society and has served at several leadership levels at AACR.

Dr. Aguirre-Ghiso received his PhD from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1997 and completed his post-doctoral training as a Charles H. Revson Fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2003. He became an Assistant Professor at SUNY-Albany the same year and since 2008 he was at ISMMS where he joined as Associate Professor and reached the rank of Professor in 2014 and of Endowed Chair in 2020.

His work focuses on understanding the biology of residual cancer cells that persist in a dormant state after initial therapy. His research team led, along with others, a paradigm shift, revealing novel cancer biology that diverges from the notion that cancer is perpetually proliferating. His work has been published in top tier journals such as Nature, Nature Cell Biology, JEM, Nature Cancer, Science and Cancer Cell among others. His team discovered that reciprocal crosstalk between disseminated tumor cells and the microenvironment regulates the inter-conversion between dormancy and proliferation of metastasis. His lab has also provided mechanistic advances to the understanding of the process of early dissemination in breast cancer and how it contributes to dormancy and metastatic progression. His work also has mechanistically explored how adaptive pathways such as the unfolded protein response allow cancer cells to persist while quiescent. This knowledge enables targeting residual cancer before it becomes clinically detectable and thus preventing recurrences. This approach led him to find a startup company, HiberCell, that is conducting clinical trials and further drug development born from his vision. His research, which has been applied in clinical studies, is revealing ways to maintain residual cancer dormancy, kill dormant cancer cells, and utilize markers to determine the dormant or active state of disseminated cancer cells.

Anna Adam-Artigues, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Twitter: @Anna_adam_
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4257-8535

Anna obtained her PhD in Biotechnology and Biomedicine from the University of Valencia (Spain) in 2022, where she specialized in mechanisms of resistance to HER2 blockade in breast cancer, strategies to overcome it and biomarkers to predict anti-HER2 treatment response. She joined the Aguirre-Ghiso lab at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (NY) as a postdoctoral researcher to study the biological mechanisms of disseminated tumor cells’ dormancy and minimal residual disease in breast cancer and how the microenvironment influences the behavior of these cells. Her research addresses one of the most challenging aims in the clinics which is to prevent and/or manage late recurrences in breast cancer with the goal to improve long-term survival rates.

Lionel Colon, B.Sc.
Student

Lionel Colon is a second-year student in the Julio Aguirre-Ghiso Lab where he studies cancer dormancy in glioblastoma. Lionel began his academic journey at Borough of Manhattan Community College where he received his associate degree in biology and later completed his undergraduate studies at City College of New York with a Bachelor of Science in biology and a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. With research experience ranging from heavy metal-tolerant bacteria to neuroscience studies in zebra finches, Lionel is not just a researcher but also a committed mentor. His involvement in the Borough of Manhattan Community College's Science and Technology Entry Program and initiatives for underrepresented students highlight a dedication to diversity in STEM education.

Rama Kadamb, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0002-0157-2305
https://sciprofiles.com/profile/1998695

Rama obtained her PhD degree in Biomedical science from University of Delhi, where she studied the gene regulation functions of p53 protein under DNA damage condition. She has a keen interest in cancer biology and in studying epigenetic programs that regulate tumor biology. As a postdoc at Mount Sinai, she explored how protein-protein interactions in transcriptional complexes can be targeted to inhibit tumor growth and invasion in triple negative breast cancer models. She joined the Aguirre-Ghiso lab where she is working on uveal melanoma dormancy and metastasis. UM (Uveal Melanoma) is a rare but deadly cancer of the eye that metastasizes to the liver after prolonged periods of clinical latency. Her current project is to dissect the mechanism that leads to dormancy onset and reactivation of disseminated UM cells in the liver after resection of primary tumor.

Nuri Panjaton, BSB
Project Coordinator

Nuri is the Project Coordinator for the Aguirre-Ghiso Lab and Cancer Dormancy and Tumor Microenvironment Institute (CDTMI). She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Business degree from the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Professional Studies (SPS). She brings professional experience in providing efficient administrative and operational support. She helps to run lab operations and serves as a seamless bridge with the institutional administrative resources.

Michael Papanicolaou, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Michael is interested in how the process of ageing affects disseminated tumor cell dormancy. Over time, homeostatic processes are perturbed, involving cells in the tumor microenvironment such as immune and non-immune stromal cells. The observation that tumor metastasis has a latency period hints to the possibility that age-related changes in the microenvironment affect tumor cell survival, dormancy, and re-awakening in metastatic sites. Understanding the ageing microenvironment may uncover therapeutic vulnerabilities in metastasis.

Lucia Petriz Otaño, B.Sc., M.Sc.
Twitter: @LuciaPetriz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucia-petriz-a37504177

Lucía obtained her degree in biology from the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). She worked on her Master Thesis studying the Effect of Inhibition of the Wnt Pathway in Basal-type Mammary Tumor Cells. She is currently a student in the Biomedicine PhD program at Albert Einstein College, and she has joined Julio’s lab with the aim of contributing to the discovery of new knowledge in the cancer dormancy field.

Luis Valencia Salazar, BA
M.D.-Ph.D. candidate
Twitter: @Luis_ValenciaS_
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5499-1394

Luis obtained his BA from Columbia University where he researched mechanisms of acquired drug resistance in colorectal tumors treated with anti-Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibodies. He also worked on identify and characterizing cancer stem cell populations in colorectal malignancies and their normal counterparts in healthy intestinal tissue. Luis is an MD-PhD candidate in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Einstein and has recently joined the lab of Dr. Aguirre-Ghiso. He hopes to bring his knowledge of stem cells and drug resistance to study the mechanisms of dormancy in early disseminated cancer cells in breast cancer and minimal residual disease.

Lornella Seeneevassen, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Twitter: @SLornella
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8085-4828

Lornella obtained her PhD in Cell biology, Physiology and Pathology from the University of Bordeaux (France). Her PhD work in the Inserm Unit 1053 and BRIC focused on the targeting of Cancer Stem Cells in gastric cancer by modulating the Hippo signaling pathway, important in these cells. This work gave her the opportunity to work on primary tumor biology, but also on the metastatic process which is one of the principal causes of bad prognosis in cancer. Metastasis was known for long as a late stage of cancer, but studies now show cancer cells disseminating at the very beginning of the disease. Disseminated cells are thus believed to remain in a dormant stage in the secondary metastatic sites before awakening years after. She joined Dr. Julio Aguirre-Ghiso’ lab as a post-doctoral researcher to decipher this dormancy phenotype in Uveal Melanomas (UM), a rare disease where about 50% of patients die of liver metastasis. Her project will focus on the interplay of TGFβ2 signaling and microenvironment in the reactivation of UM disseminated cancer cells in the liver.

Deisy Segura-Villalobos, PhD.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Twitter: @DeisySegurV
https://orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0001-9688-1014

Deisy received her Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the Department of Pharmacobiology at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Mexico City. Her dissertation focused on understanding how hypoxia modifies the mast cell phenotype and how this affects cancer progression. As a postdoctoral fellow, her research efforts revolve around the fascinating field of cancer dormancy and unraveling the cellular and molecular mechanisms triggered by hypoxia that underlie tumor dissemination and metastasis, especially in the early stages of cancer development. Her work could help to identify new therapeutic targets and strategies to combat dormant disseminated cancer cells that ultimately lead to metastasis.

Nyima Sherpa, B.Sc.
Research Technician

Nyima obtained her Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology degree from the City University of New York, City College. She studied the role of ATM and MSH2 in cell growth and proliferation. Nyima joined the Aguirre-Ghiso lab at Albert Einstein College of Medicine as a research technician. She is experimentally screening an agonist which can induce dormancy of disseminated tumor cells and suppress metastasis.

Deepak Singh, PhD
Instructor

Deepak is interested in understanding epigenetic regulation and reprogramming of disseminated cancer cells during dormancy. He is also probing the role of EMT associated transcription factors in dormancy and metastatic progression.

Past Lab Members

Xin Huang
Senior Research Technician
Wei Zheng, PhD
Instructor
Pedram Razghandi
Research Technician
Royena Tanaz
Grants Manager
Rita Nobre, MSc
PhD Graduate Student
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Fellow – Portugal
Dan (Rosaline) Sun, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Erica Dalla, MSc
PhD Graduate Student
Melisa Lopez Anton, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Robert Wieder, MD/PhD
Provost of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences–Newark. Sabbatical Visiting Professor
Emma Risson
Graduate Student
Bassem Khalil, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Lena Wullkopf, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Aparna Ranganathan
Postdoctoral Fellow
Alfred Adomako
Postdoctoral Fellow
Alejandro Adam
Postdoctoral Fellow
Kurt Lowry
Rotating High School Student
Denis Schewe
Postdoctoral Fellow
Huei-Chi Wen
Phd Student
Sharon Sequeira
Phd Student
Bibiana Iglesias
Research Technician
Yeriel Estrada
Research Tech
Alvaro Avivar-Valderas
Postdoctoral Fellow
Carla Capobianco
Visiting Fullbright Scholar
Maria Jose Carlini
Visiting Fullbright Scholar
Ethan Tardio
Rotating HS Student
Paloma Bragado
Postdoctoral Fellow
Kathryn Harper
PhD Student
Georg Fluegen
Postdoctoral Fellow
Nina Linde
Postdoctoral Fellow
M. Soledad Sosa
Postdoctoral Fellow
Stefan Moritsch
Visiting Master Student
Margaret Hung
Master Student
Julie Cheung
Research Technician
Anna Banach
Rotating High School Student
Miguel Vizarreta Sandoval
Master Student
Christopher Pool
MD Student
Erin Butler
Research Technician
Hector Martinez
Master Student
Shishir Oja
Master Student
Ajish George
PhD Student
Rosaline Petriconne
Postdoctoral Fellow
Alba Rodriguez Martinez
Master Student
Tasrina Rahman, MSc
Research Technician