As an Assistant Professor at the Cancer and Cell Biology Division at the Translational Genomics Institute (TGen) and the Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine (DCQM) at the Beckman Research Institute (BRI) at City of Hope (COH), I lead a basic and translational research program utilizing state-of-the-art genomic approaches to study the development and evolution of glial brain tumors (gliomas). I am a full program member of City of Hope’s Comprehensive Cancer Center affiliated with the Molecular and Cellular Biology of Cancer (MCBC) program. My lab has a particular interest in the fundamental role of telomere dysfunction in glioma development, but is generally interested in all aspects of tumor evolution, including, but not limited to, longitudinal studies of therapy response assessed by genomic analysis of tumor tissue and liquid biopsies. The lab has received both public and private philanthropic funding for several translational and basic science research projects in this domain.

My medical and postdoctoral training have given me a broad, fundamental understanding of pathology, molecular biology, genetics and computational biology. My post-doctoral work in the group of Dr. Roel Verhaak aimed to define the molecular makeup of adult glial brain tumors in order to refine the taxonomy of disease and discover new therapeutic vulnerabilities. Using high-throughput sequencing and computational analysis I redefined the set of genes associated with diffuse glioma, used molecular profiling to enhance the resolution with which these tumors could be classified, and provided insights into the progression from low- to high-grade cancer. My work played a small role in the 2016 revision and 2021 edition of the internationally accepted World Health Organization guidelines for the classification of brain tumors.