Nervous System Archives - Sanford Burnham Prebys

Dr. Piña-Crespo earned a PhD in Pharmacology from University College London (UCL), England under the supervision of Profs. Alasdair Gibb & David Colquhoun FRS. He completed postdoctoral training as a Pew Fellow/Research Associate with Prof. Steve Heinemann in the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at The Salk Institute, La Jolla, California. Dr. Piña-Crespo has held faculty positions as Instructor and Assistant Professor at Universidad Centroccidental, Venezuela and as Lecturer in the Biology Department at the University of San Diego, California.

Education and Training

  • Postdoctoral training (Pew Fellow/Research Associate) The Salk Institute, California
  • PhD in Pharmacology University College London (University of London), England
  • Veterinarian (D.V.M.) Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado, Venezuela

Honors and Recognition

Pew Fellow in the Biomedical Sciences

Neuroscience Discovery Research

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Targeted protein S-nitrosylation of ACE2 inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Oh CK, Nakamura T, Beutler N, Zhang X, Piña-Crespo J, Talantova M, Ghatak S, Trudler D, Carnevale LN, McKercher SR, Bakowski MA, Diedrich JK, Roberts AJ, Woods AK, Chi V, Gupta AK, Rosenfeld MA, Kearns FL, Casalino L, Shaabani N, Liu H, Wilson IA, Amaro RE, Burton DR, Yates JR 3rd, Becker C, Rogers TF, Chatterjee AK, Lipton SA

Nat Chem Biol 2023 Mar ;19(3):275-283

Dr. Yu Xin (Will) Wang received his PhD at the University of Ottawa where he identified cellular asymmetry and polarity mechanisms regulating muscle stem cell self-renewal and skeletal muscle regeneration. He then carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine developing single cell multi-omic approaches to characterize the regenerative process and what goes awry with disease and aging.  

“I’ve always had a passion for science and became fascinated with how the body repairs and heals itself when I was introduced to the potential of stem cells in regenerative medicine. I was struck by the ability of a small pool of muscle stem cells that can rebuild and restore the function of muscle. My lab at Sanford Burnham Prebys aims to better understanding the repair process and harness our body’s ability to heal in order to combat chronic diseases and even counteract aging.”

Education and Training

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stanford University School of Medicine
PhD in Cellular Molecular Medicine, University of Ottawa, Canada
BS in Biomedical Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada

Prestigious Funding Awards

2020: NINDS K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award

Honors and Recognition

Governor General’s Gold Medal – Canada

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Xueqin (Sherine) Sun seeks to better understand the genetic and epigenetic underpinnings of cancers, using genome editing technologies, animal and patient-derived models, and other tools to develop more effective cancer therapies.

“My lab is interested in studying how DNA or the machinery that interprets it leads to the transformation of normal cells into cancerous cells and concurrently, their specific vulnerabilities. Identifying these intrinsic vulnerabilities and targeting them properly is profoundly important to developing effective cancer therapies.”

Another aspect of Sun’s work is understanding how cancer cells and tumors change their circumstances and environment to improve survival, including hiding from or repressing the immune system.

“Changes to DNA itself and the way how DNA is interpreted by cells can transform normal cells into cancer cells. And transformed cells propagate by enhancing the misinterpreted DNA information, which in turn becomes the Achilles’ heel of cancer cells. Our goal is to find out how DNA information is misinterpreted in different ways and how to correct it to halt cancer.”

At Sanford Burnham Prebys, Sun and colleagues will employ a host of leading-edge tools and approaches, including functional genomics, artificial intelligence, structural biology, large-scale drug screening, and advanced imaging/spatial technologies.

Sun conducted her postdoctoral fellowship at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory under the guidance of Alea Mills, PhD, a professor at the National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center at Cold Spring Harbor.

She received her PhD from Wuhan University in China.

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Professor at UC San Diego and TSRI
Department Head, Molecular Neuroscience, Merck Research Labs

Why do you do what you do?

I love doing science, and a chance to do some good for the world. Sanford Burnham Prebys is a great place to pursue science.
 

Education

1988-1991: Postdoctoral Fellow, Whitehead Institute/MIT, laboratories of Drs. Rudolf Jaenisch and David Baltimore, Developmental and Molecular Biology
1988: MD, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, Neuroscience
1981: B.A., University of Hawaii at Manoa, English and Biology
 

Honors and Recognition

2016: Alzheimer’s San Diego Courage and Hope Award
2014: Thomson Reuters World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds list of highly cited researchers 
2011: Killam Lecturer, Montreal Neurological Institute 
2010: Journal of Lipid Research Lecturer, Keystone Symposium on Bioactive Lipids: Biochemistry and Diseases, Kyoto, Japan 
2007: Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Neuroscience, LSU Medical School 
1999-2006: Independent Scientist Award, NIMH 
1994-1999: First Award, NIMH 
1993-1995: Basil O’Connor Scholar (March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation), UCSD 
1992-1995: Klingenstein Fellow in the Neurosciences, UCSD 
1992-1994: Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, UCSD 
1988-1991: Helen Hay Whitney Fellow, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research 
1981-1988: Trainee, Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), Stanford University School of Medicine 

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