Team

Principal Investigator

Dr. Cameron McAlpine, Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator.

Cameron completed his PhD at McMaster University in Canada where he studied macrophage function and inflammation in atherosclerosis. He pursued his postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School under the supervision of Dr. Fil Swirski. As a postdoctoral fellow and later an instructor at MGH, Cameron investigated sleep and neuropeptidergic circuits in the regulation of hematopoiesis and atherosclerosis, and the role of IL-3 in glial cell function in Alzheimer’s disease. Cameron joined the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and opened his independent lab in June 2021 in the Cardiovascular Research Institute, Department of Medicine, and the Nash Family Department of Neuroscience.

email: cameron.mcalpine@mssm.edu

Twitter: cam_phd

Lab Manager

Sukanya “Su” Goswami

Sukanya “Su” Goswami completed her Master’s in Biotechnology from New York University in 2014. She thereafter joined Weill Cornell Medicine as a Joint Research Technician for two labs in cancer research and discovered her knack for organization and helping lab members to further scientific research. She has recently joined the McAlpine Lab as a Laboratory Manager to implement and finesse her skills, and help the lab reach its highest performance. In her after hours, she loves taking her dog “June” out for walks, tending to her plants, and exploring new restaurants in the city.

 

Postdoctoral Fellows

Dr. Pacific Huynh

Dr. Pacific Huynh is a biomedical researcher interested in the pathological features that drive the progression of cardiovascular diseases. Having completed his PhD at Monash University, Victoria, Australia and a 2 year postdoc position at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, he joined the McAlpine lab in August 2021 to further his postdoc training. Throughout his scientific career, Pacific has dabbled in research focused on pathological processes such as inflammation, fibrosis and angiogenesis, in various chronic diseases, including diabetic nephropathy, atherosclerosis, aortic aneurysms and peripheral artery diseases. His current research focuses on the effect of sleep on immune networks and subsequent atherosclerosis development.

When he isn’t holding a pipette in his hand, he can be seen wandering the streets of New York City with his trusty camera, capturing the sprawling cityscape and vibrant life inhabiting this great city.

Dr. Abi Yates

Dr. Abi G. Yates graduated with a MSci in Biochemistry from King’s College London, before completing her PhD with the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford, UK. Having finished a post-doc with the Department of Chemistry, Abi left Oxford to join the McAlpine lab at Mount Sinai in March 2022. Her research interests lie in neuroimmunology – investigating the relationship between the central nervous and immune systems. Abi’s current research focuses on the role of IL-3 in Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.
Outside of the lab, Abi enjoys travelling, watching live music and Formula 1 racing.

 

Dr. Jan Hoffman

Jan obtained his medical degree from Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Germany, in December of 2020. His past research focused on intercellular adhesions and their possible implications in the steps leading to metastasis using pancreatic cancer as a model system. He joined the McAlpine lab in July 2022 and is excited to learn more about how the immune system contributes to some of the most common diseases worldwide, especially in the context of lifestyle factors like sleep.
When he is not in the lab Jan enjoys geeking out about coffee and going hiking.

 

Dr. Teresa Gerhardt

Teresa has been passionate about the immune mechanisms implicated in cardiovascular diseases ever since she completed her doctoral research at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology in San Diego in 2015. Having obtaining her MD from Albert-Ludwig University Freiburg, Germany, she joined the Charité in Berlin, Germany, as a clinical fellow in cardiology and clinician-scientist in 2019. With the goal to seek out the effects of lifestyle factors on vascular aging, clonal hematopoiesis and atherosclerosis, Teresa joined the McAlpine lab in January 2023.

PhD Students

Annie Khamhoung

Annie is a PhD student in immunology at Mount Sinai. She completed her B.S. in Biochemistry at Northeastern University. Annie worked for several years in biotech as a research assistant developing cancer immunotherapies before beginning graduate school. She is passionate about immunology and looking forward to delving into neuroimmunology and brain-body interactions governed by the immune system. Annie is currently focused on neurodevelopmental diseases. When Annie isn’t in the lab, she enjoys rock-climbing, and spending time in central park.

MD Students

Jake Jacob

Walter “Jake” Jacob is a medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Class of 2025. He completed a B.S. degree in biology from Providence College in Rhode Island where he used a yeast model to interrogate how ER-associated leak channels regulate programmed cell death. He then worked for two years as a postbaccalaureate research fellow at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the NIH where he studied prion proteins and molecular chaperones. Now, as a medical student, his research interests lie at the intersection of different organ systems. He is particularly interested in how sleep modulates hematopoietic stem cell differentiation and how this impacts the subsequent development of atherosclerosis.