Rachel Young is the MAGIC Clinical Trial Manager, starting by working on Bone Marrow Transplant trials in 2007 with Drs. Levine and Ferrara at the University of Michigan, and continued on at the start of MAGIC, with its inception in 2012.  As the project has grown, so has her role within MAGIC, including creating and expanding the MAGIC Data Coordinating Center team, adding more sites to the core study, the Natural History Study, and opening therapeutic clinical trials – collaborating with pharmaceutical companies along the way.  She is excited to see what the future brings for this project team and for BMT patients!

Janna Baez is a Senior Research Clinical Associate who has been with MAGIC for 5 years. She monitors the MAGIC clinical trials and assists with regulatory submissions.

Alina Khan obtained her Master’s Degree from Rutgers School of Public Health. Following her interest in healthcare and research, she joined the MAGIC team as a Clinical Research Associate. She aspires to continue to gain more knowledge and experiences in research. In her free time she likes cooking and traveling.

Aaron Etra, M.D. is an assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. His clinical specialty is caring for patients undergoing autologous and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplants. Dr. Etra’s research interests are graft vs. host disease and Crohn’s Disease.

Nikolaos Katsivelos got his Medical Degree from the University of Athens, Greece. Following his interest in immunology and translational research, he joined the MAGIC team as a Clinical Research Associate. He is aspiring to become a physician in the United States and continue conducting clinical research. In his free time he likes baking, walking, and listening to music.

Gilbert Eng is an experienced software programmer with 18 years of expertise, specializing in clinical trial software. As the sole programmer in MAGIC, he diligently develops, maintains, and helps analyze data, playing a crucial role in the success of clinical trials through his software solutions.

Nikolaos Spyrou is a physician and postdoctoral fellow in MAGIC with a master’s degree in Bioinformatics. In MAGIC, he has been exploring prognostic modeling to develop tools for the prediction of future long-term patient outcomes using present clinical and biomarker information. He will soon begin his internal medicine residency at Mount Sinai to learn how to integrate patient care and research.

Sergio Dellepiane completed his PhD and clinical Nephrology training in Torino University in Italy and moved to the United States in 2016. In 2018 he joined Dr. Ferrara’s basic science team where he explored the activation of the complement leptin pathway in GVHD. He now works in Genentech as medical director in the Pharma Late Stage Innovation team.

Jay completed medical school and earned his medical degree from Grant Medical College in Mumbai, India, in 2015. He then joined Ferrara lab in 2016 as a clinical research coordinator/clinical postdoc and contributed to several research projects including a study of over 1600 patients to determine patients that are at an increased risk of relapse. In 2018, Jay moved to SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, to complete residency training in Pediatrics and in 2021 became a fellow in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Texas Children’s Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine.

Hrishi Srinagesh completed his MD/MSCR in the Ferrara Lab at Mount Sinai in 2020. His thesis validated serial measurement of MAGIC biomarkers to monitor response to acute GVHD treatment and was published in Blood Advances. Hrishi is completing his internal medicine residency and hematology fellowship at Stanford University with the goal of pursuing a career in bone marrow transplantation and cellular therapy.

Alexandra Capellini studied Public Health at Johns Hopkins University before enrolling at Mount Sinai to pursue an MD and Master of Science in Clinical Research through the selective Patient Oriented Research Training and Leadership (PORTAL) program. She joined the Ferrara lab for a research year following her third year of medical school. During her research year, Alexandra contributed to the analyses of a phase II clinical trial investigating itacitinib as a novel monotherapy for treating low-risk acute GVHD. Alexandra was responsible for creating a control group to generate comparative analyses of efficacy and toxicities among itacitinib vs steroid-treated patients with low-risk acute GVHD. She is proud of the team’s work leading to the publication of results in Blood. Alexandra is starting her Medicine-Pediatrics residency at the University of Michigan. She hopes to pursue a medical and clinical research career in pediatric/young adult oncology.

Kaitlyn London is a graduate of the highly selective joint MD and Masters of Science in Clinical Research Patient Oriented Research Training and Leadership (PORTAL) program at Mount Sinai. She joined the Ferrara Lab during her first year of medical school as a Tisch Cancer Institute Inaugural Medical Student Research Fellow and completed her Masters thesis at the Ferrara Lab as an American Society of Hematology Physician Scientist Award recipient analyzing a phase II study of Natalizumab plus standard corticosteroid treatment for high-risk acute GVHD. She is now a Pediatrics Resident at New York Presbyterian – Weill Cornell and aims to dedicate her career to pediatric hematology-oncology research.

Sam Jeong investigated the role of Reg3g in modulation of RIPK1 activities during GVHD in Dr. James Ferrara lab. Currently, he is expanding his immunology background to the development of personalized cancer vaccine, one of the immunotherapies

Stephanie Gergoudis received her medical degree from Mount Sinai in 2021. During her research year she analyzed and published the results of the first clinical the primary trial to use MAGIC biomarkers as eligibility criteria in Blood Advances.  She is currently a resident at Weill-Cornell. Upon finishing her medical residency, she will be joining the Memorial Sloan Kettering community as a chief resident for a year. She is excited to continue her work in oncology and plans to pursue a career in hematology-oncology.