Our community

Our highly individualized education is designed to focus on your scientific interests and career goals.

At the heart of the program is mentorship by outstanding faculty. Unique aspects of the Sanford Burnham Prebys Ph.D. program include:

Highly personalized curriculum with 1:1 tutorials
Career advising and support in research training
Immigration support
Training also offered in:
- Writing and presentation skills
- Leadership development
- Career and professional development

Educating Ph.D. students to become the innovative biomedical scientists of the future.

Current graduate students

Yosiris Hagan

Blaho Lab

Yosiris' work will establish how pre-treatment with the sphingosine-1 phosphate receptr 1 (S1P1) modulator, FTY720, blocks hemaptopoietic stem cell expression of S1P1 after Doxorubicin treatment and results in improved chemotherapeutic outcomes in cancer patients.

Michael Alcaraz

Adams Lab

Michael’s work will focus in understanding the epigenetic changes that occur in humans as we age and how these changes lead to a higher cancer incidence.

Ceda Stamenkovic

Sacco Lab

Ceda is interested in studying muscle stem cells and is utilizing mouse genetic models to understand how loss of heterogeneity of muscle stem cells is linked to the depletion of muscle mass that occurs in aging.

Current graduate students

Michael Alcaraz
Michael’s work will focus in understanding the epigenetic changes that occur in humans as we age and how these changes lead to a higher cancer incidence.
Aleksandr Arzamasov
Alex studies the key bacterial taxa involved in healthy development of the neonatal human gut microbiota using bioinformatic and biochemical approaches.
Nahal Azimi
Nahal is interested in refractory subtypes of acute myeloid leukemia, and will focus on the mechanisms that drive these tumors and mediate resistance to therapy.
Meher Beigi Masihi, M.S.
Meher’s work is focused on understanding underlying molecular mechanisms of pediatric brain tumor development to identify potential therapeutic targets.
Maria Cavarlez
Yu-Ling (Linda) Chang
Linda’s research focuses on identifying novel barriers to cell reprograming to regenerate cardiomyocytes and investigating the mechanism of barriers in cell fate determination and reprogramming.
Savio Chow
Savio's work focuses on understanding gene regulatory mechanisms and their perturbations in human diseases by computational modeling and machine learning approaches to study drug responses.
Zong Ming Chua
Zong Ming's work focuses on understanding the aging process through altering the stability of the epigenome.
Ximena Diaz Olea
Ximena aims to understand how RNF5 microbiome can control antitumor immunity.
Jordan Friedlein, M.S.
Jordan's work will focus on using mouse models and genetic engineering techniques to identify mutations in cancer cells that act as a lifeline to many cancer types.
Marcos Garcia Teneche
Marcos aims to unveil the mechanisms of leukemia initiation and progression with age.
Shea Grenier, M.S.
Shea's work will contribute to investigating metabolic adaptations that promote the development and progression of Ras-mutant cancers.
Gabriele Guarnaccia
Gabriele is interested in muscle regeneration and 3D bio-printing. His research focuses on finding new therapies to recover great muscle damages and to slow the progression of degenerative diseases like the dystrophy.
Patrick Hagan
Patrick is joining the Cosford Lab where he will study how autophagy and ULK1/2 contribute to cancer therapy resistance and develop and test inhibitors to these targets to improve treatment outcomes.
Yosiris Hagan
Yosiris will establish how pre-treatment with the sphingosine-1 phosphate receptr 1 (S1P1) modulator, FTY720, blocks hemaptopoietic stem cell expression of S1P1 after Doxorubicin treatment and results in improved chemotherapeutic outcomes in cancer patients.
Sophie Hao
Sophie is focusing on understanding Notch signaling and its role in liver regeneration with applications to diseases such as Alagille Syndrome.
Rema Iyer
Rema is interested in understanding the role of genetic and epigenetic factors in the progression of cancers and finding meaningful therapies for patients.
Evodie Koutouan
Aashna Lamba
Aashna's research focsues on characterizing cell fate stabilization using cell painting and HTS to profile cell morphology during cancer cell transformation.
Shaun Lim
Shaun's work explores the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate autophagic flux and their implications on aging using C. elegans as a model.
Tianhui Liu
Tianhui is interested in contribution of autophagy in stress-induced cellular senescence.
Texia Loh
Texia is interested in using small module degrades to understand the role of epigenetic regulators in DNA damage repair.
Ryan Loughran
Ryan is working to uncover new and important roles of phosphoinositide lipid kinase signaling in the context of tumor cell metabolism.
Michaela Lynott
Michaela’s research focuses on identifying novel cardiac disease-associated pathways and innovative cardiac regenerative strategies using in vitro models and an automated screening platform.
Katya Marchetti
Katya explores the underlying genetic mechanisms involved in heart development and congenital heart disease using the fruit fly and zebrafish as a model organism.
Rachael McVicar
Rachael’s research aims to characterize proximal lungs cells by unique cell surface markers in order to increase the efficiency of lung differentiation protocols and enrich the target cell populations.
Tatiana Moreno
Tatiana will explore how autophagy is regulated upon hormetic stress and aging in the nematode C. elegans and mammalian/human systems.
Ruslan Nuryyev, M.S.
Ruslan’s research will be focused on examining progenitor cells in a hypothermic environment in an effort to develop a neuroprotective treatment for hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.
Utkarsha Paithane
Utkarsha’s research will be focused on studying genetic mutations that contribute to cancer initiation.
Aditi Pedgaonkar
Aditi's research focuses on elucidating epigenetic mechanisms underlying the progression of acute myeloid leukemia.
Adarsh Rajesh
Adarsh is interested in using cell biology and bioinformatic techniques to unlock the cellular mechanisms behind aging and age-associated diseases.
Daniel Rebibo
Daniel's research focuses on identifying novel aberrations in leukemia by integrating omics information through a computational approach.
Stephen Sakuma
Stephen's work focuses on elucidating the role of modulating nuclear pore complex composition and assembly at the cellular and organismal level.
Paloma Sanchez Pavon
Paloma studies the role that lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) plays in a neurological disease called hydrocephalus, trying to counteract its effects and improve the life of the patients.
Anis Shahnaee
Cedomir Stamenkovic
Ceda is interested in studying muscle stem cells and is utilizing mouse genetic models to understand how loss of heterogeneity of muscle stem cells is linked to the depletion of muscle mass that occurs in aging.
Benjamin Van Espen, M.S.
Benjamin’s research focuses on signaling pathways that are deregulated in cancer, putting an emphasis on the importance of ubiquitin ligases, which control cellular response to diverse stress stimuli.
Jiaqian (Emily) Wu, M.S.
Emily’s research focuses on developing small drug inhibitor for cancer therapeutics and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Skye Xu
Skye is studying the role of ATF6 in maintaining synaptic integrity through an EGR1 dependent pathway in Alzheimer's disease.
Sviatlana Zaretski
Sviatlana is interested in studying the role of autophagy in such age-associated phenomena as cellular senescence, to understand the interplay of the key components of autophagy involved in cellular senescence and describe how autophagy is being re-modelled upon entering senescence to find possible interventions and promote healthy aging.
Hanxiao Zhang
Hanxiao's research focuses on proteasome assembly by tagging and purifying endogenous proteasome chaperons in the human cell and studying the structure by Cryo-EM.
Chenyu Zhou
Chenyu's work focuses on determining the structure of various proteins under different physiological status using Cryo-EM and other techniques.
Zhouting Zhu, M.S.
Zhouting will investigate the RNA methylation pathways and their impact on cancer development as well as identification of small molecule inhibitors of targets involved in cancer.

Alumni

"Sanford Burnham Prebys graduate students are bright and highly driven with a clear focus on their next career step. Upon graduation, most of our students have moved on to become successful biomedical researchers in both fields of industry and academia."

– Alessandra Sacco, Ph.D.
Vice Dean and Associate Dean for Student Affairs

Mallika Iyer, Ph.D.

"I think our program is really unique. Its small size means that each student gets a lot of attention, and we have an Office of Education, Training and International Services (OETIS) that really offers us a lot of great resources to help us shape our careers."

Marisa Sanchez, Ph.D.

"I chose to study at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute because it is leading the frontiers of translational biomedical research. I have always had a fascination for research and discovering new ways to improve the lives of people suffering from disease."

Miguel Reina Campos, Ph.D.

"I was drawn to Sanford Burnham Prebys for its clinically oriented goals, state of the art facilities and the great talent that inhabits the institution. It appeared to me as the perfect blend of the will to cure and the genuine curiosity that drives the finest basic research."

Alumni

2022

Karina Barbosa Guerra, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Chromatin Control of Cancer Stem Cells in Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Betsaida Bibo Verdugo, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Caspase mechanisms in inflammatory cell death
Joe Fromm, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Probing the Substrate Pocket of the Thioesterase Domain of Fatty Acid Synthase
James Kent, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Pathogen Virulence Factors: Structural Biology at the Interface Between Host and Pathogen
Mallika Iyer, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Studying protein conformational diversity and flexibility through the lens of experimentally solves structures

2021

Nicole Bata, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: The Discovery and Characterization of Small Molecule Modulators of Apoptosis and Autophagy for the Treatment of Cancer
Katja Birker, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: A novel role for mitoschondrial MICOS gene CHCHD6 in cardiac function and structure
J. Scotty Cadet, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Mannose Supplement and SGK1 Attenuation Enhance EGFR-Targeted Therapy
Ayako Murao, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Role of the Novel Cell Surface Hyaluronidase TMEM2 in Early Embryogenesis
Huiyu Ren, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Discovery of Novel Cancer Therapeutics by Targeting the ULK1/2 Autophagy Initiation Complex

2020

Numana Bhat, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Regnase-1 is essential for B cell homeostasis to prevent autoimmunity
Daniel Ojeda Juarez, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Lipocalin-2 mediates neuronal damage and behavioral deficits in HIV-induced brain injury
Pavel Ryzhov, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Structural Studies of Bcl-2 Family Proteins in Lipid Bilayers
Jessica Stupack, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Novel roles for the AD risk factor SORLA in neurite outgrowth and synaptic protection

2019

Clyde Campbell, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: In vivo Lineage Conversion of Vertebrate Muscle into Early Endoderm-Like Cells
Alex Campos, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: TXNRD1 Mediated Regulation of the Wnt/β-catenin Pathway in Colorectal Cancer
Lisa Elmen, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: From Disease Promotion to Therapeutics - the Multifaceted Roles of Gut Bacteria
Anjali Gupta, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: CRTC Signaling in the Heart of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster
Cameron Pernia, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Hyper-Excitable Neurons Produce Hypo-Functional Neuronal Networks: Evidence from Modeling CRMP2 in Bipolar Disorder
Miguel Reina Campos, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Increase Serine and One-Carbon Pathway Metabolism by PKC Lambda/Iota Deficiency Promotes Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer
Marisa Sanchez, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Coordination of Adaptive and Pro-apoptotic Responses to Oxidative Stress at the mRNA Translation Level

2018

Francesca Boscolo Sesillo, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Role of p53 in balancing self-renewal, myogenic commitment, and cellular transformation of muscle stem cells
Monica Gonzalez, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: The role of caspases in inflammation
Marco Maruggi, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Elucidating the Mechanisms Underlying Resistance to Targeted Therapy in Pancreatic Cancer
Wesley McKeithan, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Reengineering an Antiarrhythmic with Human Pluripotent Stem Cells
Róisín Puentes, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Targeting the CNK1 PH domain to inhibit mutant KRAS cancer growth
Amir Razai, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Biochemical Toolbox: New Strategies for the Characterization and Inhibition of Proteases
Tiara Wong, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Using iPSC-derived mesenchymal stromal cells to study fibrosis in Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia/Cardiomyopathy

2017

Jinsha Liu, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: T-cadherin and Adiponectin in hippocampal synaptic functions and behaviors
Gianluigi Lichinchi, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Dynamics of RNA methylation during HIV and ZIKV infections
Khooshbu Shah, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Pathological Interactions of Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia/Cardiomyopathy (ARVD/C) Cardiomyocytes with ARVD/C Mesenchymal Stromal Cells
Victoria Thaney, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Neuroprotection by IFN-beta in HIV/gp120 Brain Injury

2016

Paula Coutinho Toto, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Regulation of Skeletal Muscle Cell Quiescence, Proliferation and Differentiation by Brahma-based SWI/SNF Chromatin-Remodeling Complex
Alessandra Dall'Agnese, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: MYOD-directed changes in the nuclear architecture during myogenic conversion of somatic cells
Mirco Guigli, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Investigation of Structured Illumination Confocal Microscopy for High Content Screening
Stephen Soonthornvacharin, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Systems-Level Analysis to Elucidate the Regulation of the RIG-I-Mediated Antiviral Innate Immune Response
Matthew Tierney, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Regulatory mechanisms controlling muscle stem cell behavior during skeletal muscle repair

2015

Giuseppina Claps, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Redefining AFT2 in Braf-driven melanoma
Yi Ding, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Structural and Functional Studies of the Outer Membrane Protein Ail from Yersenia Pestis
Sara Gelino, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Investigating the Mechanisms of Autophagy-Mediated Longevity During Dietary Restriction
Saumya Nagar, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Role of MEF2 in photoreceptor degeneration

2014

Angel Bottini, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Drug Discovery Studies on Influenza A Virus and Yersinia Outer Protein H (YopH)
Ryan Esquejo, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Integration of Lipid Synthesis and Other Biological Processes via Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Proteins
Domenico Fasci, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: New Insights into the Regulation of SUMO Dynamics by the Human SUMO-specific Proteases (SENPs)
Lorenzo Giordani, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Cell Fate Modulation in Skeletal Muscle Interstitial Cells: A Possible Approach in Muscular Dystrophy
Ryon Graf, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: The Regulation of Breast Cancer Metastasis by Caspase-8
Janna Hachmann, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Activity and Specificity of the Human Paracaspase MALT1
Philip McQuary, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Understanding the longevity of rsks-1/S6K C. elegant mutants
Goonho Park, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Investigation of Aberrant Epigenetic Mechanisms in Parkinson's Disease Pathogenesis
Judith Scheliga, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Role of elf3e in mRNA Translation
Danhua Zhang, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: The Specification of Ductal Lineages in Liver and Pancreas

2013

Wenqing Cai , Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Stage-Specific Cell Fate Commitment During Cardiac Differentiation in mESCs
Xin Wang, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Loss of Sorting nexin 27 Continues to Excitatory Synaptic Dysfunction Via Modulation of Glutamate Receptor Recycling in Down Syndrome

2012

Corrine Lee , Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Spinal Disinhibition in a Rodent Model of Painful Diabetic Neuropathy
Runquan Zhang, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Novel Synthetic Ligands of CCR5 and CXCR4: Biochemical Characterization and Preclinical Studies

2011

Cheng-Ho Chung, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Adult Beta Cell Regeneration
Johanna Samuelsson, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: DNA Demethylation of SST1 Pericentromeric Repetitive Elements in Human Cancer
Ying Zhang, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Integrating Computational Structure-Function Analyses for the Genome-Scale Modeling of Metabolic Networks

2009

Lorena Puto, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Epigenetic Control of Apoptosis and Autophagy Gene Expression and Promotion of Tumorigenicity by Nuclear Body Protein, Daxx
Annelies Zinkernagel, Ph.D.
Thesis Title: Exploring Bacterial Pathogen Interactions with Host Phagocytes to Identify Novel Approaches to Infectious Disease Therapy