Kai Kessenbrock, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
kai.kessenbrock@uci.edu
Pascal received his Ph.D. from the University of Bern, Switzerland, where he deciphered the role of IL-33/ST2 signaling in leukemia and hematopoiesis. He is a tumor immunologist with a major interest in the interplay between the innate immune system and cancer stem cells during early stages of
cancer development. His current project focuses on the role of innate lymphoid cells in breast cancer development, using different mouse models, flow cytometry, and single cell genomics.
Carina Sandoval received her PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work identified how HIV-1 modulates the DNA damage response and activates NF-kB signaling. Currently, Carina is a postdoc interested in understanding how the microenvironment in the mammary gland contributes to cancer initiation. She is working on defining how pre-cancer-associated fibroblasts drive premalignant changes in BRCA1 mutation carriers. In her free time, she enjoys reading and practicing yoga.
Jacob received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. His current research explores the interaction between metastatic tumor cells and their organ-specific niche using cell proximity-based labeling following single cell genomics analyses.
Alexander Hsu
PhD Student (Biological Chemistry)
arhsu@uci.edu
Alex received his B.S. in biochemistry from University of California, Santa Barbara. Before graduate school, his research experience spanned the fields of cancer imaging, biosensor engineering, and autoimmunity. As a Ph.D. student in the Kessenbrock Lab, he now studies the role of neutrophils in breast cancer in hopes of understanding how patients develop resistance to cancer immunotherapy.
Noah Wechter
PhD Student (Biological Chemistry)
nwechter@uci.edu
Noah Wechter received his B.A. in Biology from Whitman College in 2019, where he completed his thesis on plant genetics. Following undergrad, he pursued aging research in the Bohr Lab as a post-baccalaureate fellow in the National Institutes of Health Intramural Research Training program. During the pandemic, he shifted focus to bioinformatics analysis of cellular senescence with the Gorospe Lab. In the Kessenbrock Lab, he collaborates on the Human Breast Cell Atlas project to build a spatially resolved atlas of the healthy human breast at multiple levels of resolution. Outside the lab, he enjoys baking sourdough and all forms of locomotion, including running, climbing, swimming, and biking.
Sharmila Mallya
Staff Research Associate III/ Lab Manager
smallya@uci.edu
Sharmila holds a master’s in Biology and has extensive research experience in hematological malignancies. Along with being a lab manager for both the Lawson and Kessenbrock Labs, she has worked on the Human Breast Cell Atlas Project. Her responsibilities include managing all single-cell RNA sequencing projects in the lab, as well as bioinformatics data analysis and data management.
Jessica Gonzalez
Staff Research Associate I/ Lab Manager
jessigg3@uci.edu
Jessica Gonzalez received her Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences with an emphasis in Immunology and Microbiology from UC Merced in 2020. While at Merced, she was part of Dr. Mike Cleary’s lab where they studied how complex tissues develop from relatively small populations in stem cells. After graduating, she went on to work at the VA Medical Center in Loma Linda, and was part of Dr. Hongzhe Li’s lab focusing on ototoxicity in audiology research. Currently in Lawson Lab, Jessica’s project focuses on examining pericytes’ role in breast cancer metastasis and tumor formation.
Current Undergraduate Researchers:
Ayisha Bushra
Kim Nguyen
Ji-Tao Yuen
Former Lab Members:
Dr. Quy H. Nguyen (CMB Graduate Student; now scientist at Genomics High-Throughput core facility at UCI)
Dr. Nicholas Pervolarakis (MCSB Graduate Student; now Computational Scientist at Active Motif, San Diego, California)
Nathan Ryan James (Lab manager; now UCI Medical School)
Jan Rath (Master Student; now Graduate Student at Lausanne University, Switzerland)
Josh Mo (Rotation student; now MSTP student UCI)
Samantha Magpantay (visiting high school student)
Anushka Silva (undergraduate researcher)
Anush Markaryan (undergraduate researcher)
Leona Torosian (undergraduate researcher)
Christian Calderon (undergraduate researcher)