David Dominguez-Sola, MD, PhD (Principal Investigator)
Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain)
david.dominguez-sola@mssm.edu

David was originally trained as a pathologist. Prior to starting his group, he was an Associate Research Scientist at the Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University. When he is not in his office writing grants or asking his lab members, “how are your experiments going?”, David can be found reading, watching movies, drawing, or running!

 

Alja Kozulic-Pirher, PharmD, MSc, PhD (Postdoctoral fellow)
Ljubljana, Slovenia
alja.pirher@mssm.edu
Alja has a Pharm.D. from the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), a MSc in Biology from the University Joseph Fourier in France. She completed her PhD at University of Montpellier (France) where she investigated how promoter architecture controls kinetics of transcription using live cell imaging at single molecule resolution. In the DDS lab, she is studying how MYC deregulation causes replication stress. Alja is also a cat lover who enjoys traveling and reading!

 

Nicole Stokes, BA (PhD Student, Cancer Biology)
Connecticut, United States
nicole.stokes@icahn.mssm.edu

Nicole has a BA in Biology. Prior to joining the lab as a PhD candidate, she was an Associate Researcher in the Genetics and Genomic Sciences department at Mount Sinai. Her graduate studies are co-mentored by Dr. Eirini Papapetrou and David and supported by an NCI F31 award. Nicole is engineering in vitro human hematopoiesis models to study the oncogenic mechanisms of MYC in Acute Myeloid Leukemia. In addition to being a PhD student, Nicole is a full-time dog mom, an avid knitter, and a lover of complex board games & escape rooms!

 

Nada Terra (Associate Researcher)
New York, New York, United States
nada.terra@mssm.edu

Nada is a native New Yorker who has a BA in Biology and a minor in English from the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College. In the laboratory, she is studying the effects of  MYC mutations in germinal center B cells, and how these help initiate the development of Burkitt lymphoma. Outside of the lab, you can find her making art, reading,  having fun with her friends or designing elaborate pranks for April’s Fools Day!

 

Rachel Sue (Summer Student)
Bronx, New York, United States

Rachel is currently an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University where she is majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology. She has been interning at the DDS lab since she was a sophomore at the Bronx High School of Science. Rachel will be attending the MD program at the ISMMS in 2022 as a student in the FlexMed Program. She is studying the mechanisms by which MYC deregulation causes replication stress, and in her spare time she bakes for fun.

 

Alumni
 

Migi Lee, MS
(Honolulu, Hawaii, United States)
Migi was a MSBS student in the laboratory, building mouse models of Burkitt Lymphoma. She is now a MD/PhD student at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, New York.

Mark Roberto, PhD
(Boston, Massachusetts, United States)
Mark was a PhD student in the Cancer Biology MTA, studying the role of FOXO1 mutations in lymphomagenesis. He is currently a scientist at Mnemo Therapeutics at the Alexandria Center, New York.

Jongkuen Lee, PhD
(Seoul, South Korea)
Jongkuen (JK) was a PhD student in the Cancer Biology MTA. He studied the impact of somatic mutations on MYC biology. JK is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Dr. Martin Eiler’s laboratory at Theodore Boveri Institute & Biocenter, University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, Würzburg, Germany.

Yuan Hu, MD
(China)
Yuan was a postdoctoral fellow working on project in collaboration with Dr. Peter Heeger. She studied the role of complement signaling in germinal center B cells. Yuan is now the Director of Therapeutic Area Project at a pharmaceutical company in China.

Gabriele Varano, PhD
(Milan, Italy)
Gabriele was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory, studying (among other things) the role of FOXO1 mutations in lymphomas. He is now a senior scientist at the Laboratory of Biomarkers, Biomolecular Targets and Personalized Medicine in Oncology, University of Ferrara, Italy.

Rosa Viñas-Castells, PhD
(Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain)
Rosa was the first postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory, where she studied the mechanisms by which MYc deregulation causes replication stress and genomic instability. She is now an associate at McKinsey & Company, New York.

Jennifer Kung
(United States)
Jenni was a research associate in the lab when it all started. She is currently a Grants Specialist at the Department of Oncological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Sandra Casas
(Girona, Spain)
Sandra was a laboratory technician and worked alongside Rosa studying MYC-induced replication stress mechanisms. She is currently a research associate at CEK (Centre Esther Koplovitz) in Barcelona, Spain.
 
Esther Sánchez de León, MS
(Madrid, Spain)
Esther was a MSBS student in the laboratory, developing systems to track oncogene-induced replication stress in cells. Esther went onto pursue her PhD degree at the Graduate Program at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City, NY.