Our Team


Judy Cho, M.D.
Principal Investigator, Senior Faculty

Dr. Cho is the Ward-Coleman Professor of Translational Genetics and Medicine, Vice-Chair of Translational Genetics and Gastroenterology, Director of Ceported and Director of the Institute for Personalized Medicine. She is also the PI and chair of the Steering Committee of the NIDDK IBD Genetics Consortium and a member of the NIDDK Advisory Council. She also serves on the council of American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI) and the Research Policy Committee of Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation (CCFA).

Dr. Judy Cho received her MD from Ohio State University. She was an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Hospitals, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, and Associate Professor of Medicine and Genetics, and Director of the IBD Program  at Yale University School of Medicine, prior to joining the Icahn School of Medicine in 2013.


MEMBERS OF MY TEAM:

FACULTY:

Ling-shiang (Felix) Chuang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
(May 2021 – Present)
Instructor
(February 2018 – April 2021)
Zebrafish modeling of intestinal injury bacterial exposure and medications define epithelial in vivo responses relevant to human Crohn’s Disease.

Postdoctoral Fellow
(September 2013 – January 2018)

A Frameshift in CSF2RB Predominant Among Ashkenazi Jews Increases Risk for Crohn’s Disease and Reduces Monocyte Signaling via GM-CSF.

 


POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS:

 

Huajun Han, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
(March 2022 – Present)

I aim to comprehensively characterize the function of genes implicated in inflammatory bowel diseases and the epigenetic imprint of peripheral immune cells in individuals with IBD.

 

 


GRADUATE STUDENTS:

Jake Herb
MD/PhD Student
(July 2022 – Present)
I am using using single-cell multiomics and patient-derived organoids to study the link between IBD and PSC (primary sclerosing cholangitis).

 

 


STAFF:

Nai-Yun Hsu, Ph.D.
Associate Scientist
(January 2021 – Present)
Postdoctoral Fellow
(October 2013 – December 2020)

Modeling and characterizing Ulcerative Colitis disease biology, focusing on the regulation of the stem cell niche, using organoid systems, single cell genomics and genetic approaches.

 

Kyle Gettler, Ph.D.
Associate Scientist
(January 2021 – Present)
Postdoctoral Fellow
(October 2018 – December 2020)

Multi-ethnic polygenic risk scores and data coordinating center analyst.

 

 

Ksenija Sabic
Research Manager
(July 2019 – Present)
I am responsible for procurement and management of samples and research materials for the lab. I also support the Data Coordinating Center of the IBD Genetics Consortium of the NIDDK.

 

 

Christopher Tastad
Bioinformatician II
(March 2021 – Present)
My work aims to elevate analytical capabilities with back-end improvements, lean development, and application of advanced tool sets.

 

 

Jiayu Zhang
Bioinformatician I
(May 2022 – Present)
I design and implement bioinformatics tools and pipelines to analyze single cell multi-omics data generated by IBD studies.

 

Colleen Chasteau
Clinical Research Coordinator
(August 2019 – Present)
I coordinate the efficient acquisition and processing of patient samples to further our translational research efforts.

 

Diana Paguay
Clinical Research Coordinator
(June 2022 – Present)
I assist with the clinical screening and patient recruitment processes to further increase our efforts within our research studies.

 

                                              Elizabeth Aslinger, PhD
Associate Scientist
(May 2023 – Present)

 

 


CHO LAB ALUMNI:

Yashoda Sharma, Ph.D. (2008 – 2018)

Kaida Ning (2010 – 2014)

Nicole Villaverde (2013 – 2018)

Tramy Luong (2014 – 2015)

Bridget Hill (2014 – 2015)

Jody-Ann Facey (2014 – 2016)

Philippe Labrias (2015 – 2017)

Maria Mucci (2016 – 2017)

Yamuna Devi Gangadharan (2017 – 2017)

Fernando Caday (2017 – 2017)

Karan Amlani (2017 – 2018)

Maria Sierra (2017 – 2018)

Sari Joshowitz (2017 – 2019)

Dean Decter (2019 – 2019)

Katrina Svoboda (2018-2019)

Ernie Chen (2015 – 2019)

Daphne Derose (2017 – 2019)

Chih-Chi Chou (2019-2020)

Mamta Giri (2016 – 2021)

Shikha Nayar, PhD (2017 – 2022)

Isaac Alter (2020 – 2022)

Joshua Morrison (2017 – 2022)

Zhi Chai, PhD (2020 – 2022)

Ujunwa Korie, MD (2019 – 2023)

Rachel Levantovsky, PhD (2019 – 2023)

Robert Werner (2022-2023)