rkalluri@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4601
Administrative Assistant
Melissa Smith
msmith12@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4603
Fax. 617.735.4604
Melissa graduated from Utah State University in Logan, UT with a B.A. in English: Professional Writing and a minor in German studies. After working in Ogden, UT for a year, she moved to Massachusetts and joined the Kalluri Lab
in December.
Lab Manager
Lizzy Finan
efinan@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.462
Lizzy graduated from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY with a B.A. in Biology and a minor in Environmental Science. Shortly after her graduation in Spring 2008 she joined the Kalluri Lab in Summer of 2008.
Graduate Students
Doruk Keskin
dkeskin@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.461
Doruk completed his undergraduate degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Bilkent University, Anakra, Turkey in 2007. He joined the Kalluri Lab in July of 2008 and is currently working on the role of cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions in tumor lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis.
Valerie LeBleu
vlebleu@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4616]
Val graduated with a B.S. from Florida Institute of Technology (FIT). After working in the laboratories of Dr. Charles Helmstetter (FIT) and Dr. Marc Kirschner (Systems Biology, HMS), she joined the Kalluri Lab in February 2006 to do her thesis work (BBS program). Her research interests: Type IV collagen and glomerular basement membrane, Alport's Syndrome, and stem cell based therapy for Alport's syndrome.
Scott Potenta
spotenta@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.462
Scott is an MD-PhD student at Harvard Medical School. He is pursuing his PhD through the Program of Biological and Biomedical Sciences and his primary research interest is endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition.
Illana Stanley
istanley@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.462
Illana graduated from Yale University and joined the Kalluri Lab in Summer 2008.
Joyce Tse
jtse@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4625
Joyce graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in Molecular Biology in 2005 and joined the Kalluri Lab shortly after.
Sylvia Vong
svong@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4626
Sylvia matriculated at UCLA and received a B.S. in Biochemistry. She entered the BBS program at HMS in 2006 and joined the Kalluri Lab in 2007. Sylvia is working on elucidating the role of the microenvironment in tumor initiation and progression.
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Vesi Cooke
vcooke1@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.460
Vesi received her PhD from the University of Delaware in the fall of 2007. Her thesis work focused on studying how a tight junction protein called JAM-A regulated angiogenesis. She joined the Kalluri Lab in October 2007 to study angiogensis and cancer. When Vesi is not in lab she enjoys spending time with her 2 year old daughter Lexi.
Mike Duncan
mduncan1@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.460
Mike received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences/Bio-Analytical Chemistry in 2006 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There he studied the biosynthetic enzymes of the anticoagulant drug heparin and heparan sulfate structure/function with Professor Jian Liu. His current interests as a postdoc in the Kalluri Lab are in the role of the vascular basement membrane and perivascular cells in pro-fibrotic tissue microenvironments. Mike is a 2007 UNCF Merck Postdoctoral Fellow.
Hans Eikesdal
heikesda@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.460
After completing medical school at the University of Bergen (Norway) in 1997, Hans took his PhD in medicine in 2002. His thesis work focused on the effects of local hyperthermia and tubulin disrupting cytotoxic agents on the vasculature of malignant tumors. After his PhD, Hans worked as a resident in the Dept. of Oncology, Haukeland University Hospital (Bergan, Norway) and became a specialist in radiation and medical oncology in January 2007. He started a post-doctoral fellowship in Rolf Bjerkvig's Lab at the Dept. of Biomedicine, University of Bergen in January 2007, studying the importance of blood and lymphatic vessels for tumor progression and metastasis. In June 2007, he joined the Kalluri Lab as a guest post-doctoral fellow, he is currently working on the effects of angiogensis inhibitors in malignant tumors and examining the importance of stroma cells for tumor growth.
Sarah Flier
sflier1@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4619
Sarah Flier was a Biology and Philosophy double major at Brandeis University and then went on to pursue an M.D. at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She completed her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai and is now a G.I. fellow at BIDMC. Sarah joined the Kalluri Lab in Summer 2008.
Behzad Gerami-Naini
bgerami@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4610
Behzad received his PhD from the Endocrinology-Reproductive Physiology (ERP) program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in August 2006, where he studied trophoblast differentiation in embryoid bodies derived from human embryonic stem cells. I used human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to learn more about implantation and feto-maternal interactions and worked with hESCs as a model for trophoblast differentiation to learn the effects of cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions in 2D and 3D in vitro cell culture. Behzad joined Dr. Kalluri's lab in September 2006 and started working with other lab members to implement hESCs in current research projects. Behzad has mainly been focusing on employing hESCs and their utility in future therapies for the repair of damaged kidneys. He is also interested in studying the role of matrix in vasculogenesis, angiogenesis, and the tumor microenvironment.
Keizo Kanasaki
kkanasak@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4612
Keizo graduated with his MD/PhD from Shiga University of Medical Sciences (Japan) and became a post-doctoral in the Kalluri Lab in 2005. In spite of his training as a nephrologist, Keizo is involved in various projects in the lab, including work on preeclampsia and interstitial cystitis. Amongst the Kalluri Lab members, he is known as Coach Keizo for all his dedication to the training and guidance of other post-doctoral fellows and graduate students in the lab.
Megumi Kanasaki
mkanasak@bidmc.harvard.ed
Akane Kizu
akizu@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.461
Akane is an MD/PhD who joined the Kalluri Lab in April of 2008. Akane gained an MD in 1999 from St. Marianna University School of Medicine and then received her PhD in 2005 from Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine. Her current interest lies in EMT and apoptosis and the role of integrin in angiogensis. Past interests have included the mechanism of vascular calcification and atherosclerosis in diabetes.
Soo Bong Lee
slee17@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4617
Hikaru Sugimoto
hsugimot@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4622
Hikaru completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in medicine at Okayama University, Japan. After having finished the resident program as a general physician, he got training as a diabetes specialist. He moved to Boston in 1999 for a postdoctoral fellowship to investigate genetic factors for diabetic nephropathy. In 2001, he joined the Kalluri Lab to further study blood vessels.
Neelima Tangira
ntangira@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4623
Yingqi Teng
yteng@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.735.4624
After acquiring her undergraduate degree from Peking University (China), Yingqi pursued her PhD at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. She joined the Kalluri Lab in 2006.
Instructors
Yuchi Han
yhan@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.499.1688
Warren Hill
whill@bidmc.harvard.edu
Warren attained his undergraduate and Masters degree in the Biochemistry Dept. at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand then in 1990 gained his PhD in cystic fibrosis at the University of Adelaide in South Australia. Post-doctoral and junior faculty appointments followed at the University of Pittsburgh, PA; firstly in the Dept. of Cell Biology with Professor and Chairman Raymond A. Frizzell and then with Mark L. Zeidel, Chairman of the Medicine in the Dept. of Medicine at Pittsburgh. Warren has recently followed the Zeidel Lab to BIDMC where he is an Assistant Professor in the Matrix Biology Division of the Dept. of Medicine. Warren works on the physiology and pathophysiology of the urothelium in bladder.
Rajan Mariappan
rmariapp@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.667.4322
Raj completed his graduate medical degree at Madras Medical College, Chennai, India and doctoral studies in Biomedical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Midway through his graduate studies, he moved to UTSouthwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX in 1996, and completed his doctoral work. Raj subsequently completed his anatomical and clinical pathology residency training at Yale University (Yale New Haven Hospital), and served as a chief resident (2004). In 2004, Raj moved to Stanford University Medical Center, where he completed fellowships in molecular genetic pathology and hematopathology. In 2006, he joined as staff pathologist in the Department of Pathology, BIDMC. Raj was collaborator with Dr. Roya Khosravi-Far in 2007, working on chronic myelogenous leukemia. Raj joined the Division of Matrix Biology in 2008; his research interests include bone marrow stromal cells in hematopoiesis and lymphomagenesis.
Elizabeth Zeisberg
ezeisber@bidmc.harvard.edu
Tel. 617.667.4858
Michael Zeisberg
mzeisber@bidmc.harvard.edu
