Cell Biology 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. Anne Bang is an experienced cell biologist and stem cell expert who leads efforts at the Prebys Center to develop patient cell specific and human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-based disease models for drug screening and target identification. Dr. Bang has over 20 years of experience in the fields of developmental and stem cell biology. She obtained a BS degree from Stanford University, a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, and did postdoctoral training in the Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences where her studies focused on nervous system development. 

Anne’s experience in stem cell biology began in 2005 when she joined ViaCyte, Inc. where she served as Director of Stem Cell Research and managed an interdisciplinary group working to develop human embryonic stem cells as a replenishable source of pancreatic cells for the treatment of diabetes. Her efforts focused on optimization of the differentiation process, and then on advancing the cell therapy product into development, scaled manufacturing, product characterization, and safety assessment. Anne is a co-inventor on multiple ViaCyte patents, and her team’s contributions played a key role in securing a $20 MM California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Award. 

In June of 2010, Sanford Burnham Prebys recruited Anne as Director of Cell Biology to lead efforts in stem cell-based disease modeling at the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. Her role includes leading internal research projects, as well as external collaborations with academic and industry partners.  Anne’s research program is primarily focused on neurological and neuromuscular disease, with the aim of designing human cell-based models and assays that recapitulate disease phenotypes, yet have the throughput and reproducibility required for drug discovery. Towards this goal her group has worked to develop a suite of foundational high throughput assays to monitor neuronal morphology, mitochondrial function, and electrophysiology, using high content screening, and multi-electrode array formats. They have conducted high-throughput drug screens on muscular dystrophy patient cells, hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, and hiPSC-derived neurons, including from Alzheimer’s patient specific hiPSC. Anne is a principal investigator for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) National Cooperative Reprogrammed Cell Research Groups consortium and has also received research support from rare disease foundations and pharma sponsored collaborations. She also serves on advisory boards for multiple biotechnology companies.

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Yoav Altman received his B.A. degree in Integrative Biology from the University of California at Berkeley. He started working with flow cytometry in 2001 at La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology and joined Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in 2002 as Manager of the Flow Cytometry Shared Resource and was promoted to Director in 2009. Yoav has over 18 years of experience sorting and analyzing a variety of cell lines and primary cells, including IPSCs, hESCs, immune cells, disaggregated tumors and solid tissues, such as cardiomyocytes, hepatocytes, intestinal epithelium, brain tissue, and skeletal muscle. His expertise includes a variety of single-cell assays including side population, cell cycle, apoptosis determination, immunophenotyping, calcium flux, mitochondrial membrane potential, ROS, fluorescent proteins, and FRET. Yoav is available to assist with reagent selection, experiment design, data analysis, protocol development, grant preparation, instrument training and operation and writing methods sections for publications. Yoav’s current interests include developing new imaging flow cytometry methods as well as single-particle analysis of submicron biological particles.

Eric has a broad background in chemical biology, with specific training and expertise in kinase inhibitors and targeted protein degradation, an emerging modality in which small molecules recruit E3 ligase complexes to target proteins to induce their ubiquitination and subsequent proteasomal degradation. He also has experience in pharmacological modulation of immune cells to improve anti-tumor immunity.
 
He received his PhD from the University of California San Francisco and postdoctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Education and Training

2021: Postdoctoral Fellow, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute / Harvard Medical School
2015: PhD, University of California San Francisco
2009: BS, Duke University

Fellowship

Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellowship

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CDK4/6 Inhibition Augments Antitumor Immunity by Enhancing T-cell Activation.

Deng J, Wang ES, Jenkins RW, Li S, Dries R, Yates K, Chhabra S, Huang W, Liu H, Aref AR, Ivanova E, Paweletz CP, Bowden M, Zhou CW, Herter-Sprie GS, Sorrentino JA, Bisi JE, Lizotte PH, Merlino AA, Quinn MM, Bufe LE, Yang A, Zhang Y, Zhang H, Gao P, Chen T, Cavanaugh ME, Rode AJ, Haines E, Roberts PJ, Strum JC, Richards WG, Lorch JH, Parangi S, Gunda V, Boland GM, Bueno R, Palakurthi S, Freeman GJ, Ritz J, Haining WN, Sharpless NE, Arthanari H, Shapiro GI, Barbie DA, Gray NS, Wong KK

Cancer Discov 2018 Feb ;8(2):216-233

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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Charles Spruck earned his BS in Biology at UCLA and PhD in Molecular Biology at the University of Southern California. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla and was recruited to the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego as an Assistant Professor in 2003. He joined Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2010.

Education and Training

2003: Post-doc, The Scripps Research Institute
1986: PhD, University of Southern California
1995; BS, University of California at Los Angeles

Prestigious Funding Awards / Major Collaborative Grants

NIH/NCI DoD BCRP CBCRP TRDRP

Honors and Recognition

ACS Scholar

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Pier Lorenzo Puri earned his MD at the University of Rome “la Sapienza” in 1991. Dr. Puri completed his internship in Internal Medicine at the hospital “Policlinico Umberto I” (Rome) from 1992 to 1997, and defended an experimental thesis on the vascular effects of angiotensin II to graduate as Specialist in Internal medicine at the University of Rome “la Sapienza” in 1997. During this time he was frequently working at the Freien University of Berlin, as visiting scientist at the Deprtment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, to perform experiments of protein and DNA microinjection in cultured cells. Dr. Puri trained as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), in the department of Cell Biology, under the supervision of Dr. Wang, from 1997 to 2001. He was appointed as Staff Scientist at the Salk Institute (La Jolla) in 2001, and became an Assistant Telethon Scientist at the Dulbecco Telethon Institute in Rome in 2002. He was upgraded to Associate Telethon Scientist at the Dulbecco Telethon Institute in Rome since 2007 and became Senior Telethon Scientist, Dulbecco Telethon Institute, in 2012, but declined this position. Dr. Puri joined Sanford Burnham Prebys as an Assistant Professor in 2004. He has been promoted to Associate Professor in 2010 and full Professor in 2015. From 2008 to 2016 Dr. Puri served as Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego. From 2008 to 2013 Dr Puri was an Associate Member of Sanford Children’s Health Research Center. Dr Puri has been Director of the laboratory of Epigenetics and Regeneration at Fondazione S. Lucia, Roma, Italy, but stepped down this position since 2019.

Education

University of California San Diego, Postdoctoral, Department of Biology
University of Rome La Sapienza, PhD, Internal Medicine
University of Rome La Sapienza, MD, Internal Medicine
University of Rome La Sapienza, Undergraduate, Internal Medicine

Other Appointments

2020-2024: Member of the Science Advisory Board (SAB) European Commission-funded Consortium BIND (Brain Involvement In Dystrophinopathies)
2015-2019: Standing Member, NIH Study Section (SMEP)
2010-present: Member of Editorial Board of Skeletal Muscle

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Dr. Jackson brings many years of drug discovery and development experience to Prebys Center. Prior to joining Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2009, Dr. Jackson spent 15 years working within Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical research organization. He managed cross-disciplinary teams of scientists focused on discovering chemical leads and clinical candidates directed at novel first-in-class drug targets. In 1999, he took on the role of vice president of discovery research at Johnson & Johnson’s La Jolla, California location, where he establish a state-of-the-art drugs discovery institute. As site head, Dr. Jackson oversaw all aspects of the new institute, from building design to hiring the staff of 300 scientists. In 2001 Dr. Jackson’s responsibility was expanded and as senior vice president of drug discovery at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development (U.S.) he was responsible > 800 hundred drug discovery scientists spread over five sites in the United States. Under his leadership, this organization advanced many clinical candidates into development across 5 multiple therapeutic areas including CNS, Pain, Immunology, CV disease. In 2005, Dr. Jackson was appointed President of ALZA Corporation, a large biotech company acquired by Johnson & Johnson that focused on drug delivery. As president of ALZA, he was responsible for all aspects of a 1,200 person research and development organization, successfully gaining regulatory approval for multiple drug delivery products that leverage the Oros technology and a first in class iontophoretic patch for the treatment of pain. 

Prior to his industry career Dr. Jackson was an assistant professor at The Scripps Research Institute, where he published widely in the fields of cell biology and immunology. His work included identification of motifs that direct intracellular targeting of proteins to subcellular organelles, and the relevance of this and protein folding to antigen presentation and processing in the immune system. He received his PhD from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Dundee in Scotland. 

Career Highlights 

  • Managed (2009-2012) and then lead as P.I (2013-2014), Sanford Burnham’s NIH funded U54 grant Molecular libraries comprehensive screening center. 
  • Led the transformation of the Prebys center from a chemical biology and probe production organization to a full capable drug discovery operation generating first in class small molecule drug leads/NME’s. 
  • Instrumental in securing the Institutes first major multi-year, multi PI/project thematic translational collaboration with a pharmaceutical company. 
  • Instrumental in establishing the Florida Translational Research Program – a multi year contract from the department of health/State of Florida supporting Sanford Burnham Prebys translational drug discovery program in Orlando. 
  • Developed and executed “first of a kind” collaborative translational agreements with the Mayo clinic. 
  • Key member of the executive team that established a 10-year plan for the Institute that defined a path to sustainability. This plan was instrumental in securing an anonymous donation to the Institute of $275MM in January 2014. 
  • Established a pipeline of first in class therapeutics leads, the first product of this pipeline was licensed to Daiichi Sankyo in 2015. 
  • Key interface between the Institute and philanthropist Conrad Prebys, which resulted in a $100MM donation to the Institute in 2015
  • Instrumental is establishing a regional drug discovery effort for Alzheimer’s disease in collaboration with Alzheimer’s San Diego, Mayor’s office San Diego and SD County Supervisor.

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Timothy Huang completed his PhD at the University of Calgary (Canada) under Dr. Dallan Young, studying kinase pathways involved in mediating cell polarity in yeast. He studied mechanisms underlying actin cytoskeletal dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease at Scripps with Dr. Gary Bokoch (La Jolla), before joining Dr. Huaxi Xu’s laboratory in 2012/2013.

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Dr. Colas earned his PhD from the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France.
 

Funding Awards and Collaborative Grants

2011-2013: American Heart Association Post-Doctoral Fellowship
2011: Best Talk Award (Development & Aging Post-Doctoral Retreat, SBP)
2010-2011: California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Post-Doctoral Fellowship
2006-2007: French Myopathy Association PhD Fellowship
2003-2006: Ministry of French Research PhD Fellowship
2000-2001: Erasmus Undergraduate Fellowship

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