Judith Graham Pool Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Dr. Saurabh Kumar is working as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Qizhen Shi’s lab at the Versiti Blood Research Institute, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received his Ph.D. from the CSIR-Central Institute of Aromatic and Medicinal Plants/Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. As a recipient of the JGP Fellowship, he will investigate the role of the Tfh/Tfr pathway in the immune responses to FVIII during the development of FVIII inhibitors in hemophilia A (HA) mice. His goal is to develop new interventions that can prevent FVIII immune responses in HA patients and help establish effective immune tolerance in those with inhibitors.

Alice Todaro, PhD is a recipient of the NBDF Judith Graham Pool (JPG) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. She completed her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at CARIM (Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht), Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Currently, she is post-doctoral fellow at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. With the support of JGP fellowship, her research will focus on understanding the regulation and functions of coagulation factors in hemostasis, the physiological process by which the body stops bleeding and repairs damaged blood vessels. This research may uncover new therapeutic targets for bleeding disorders in order to restore the hemostatic balance.

Marisa Brake, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA. She earned her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Oakland University in Michigan. Dr. Brake studies how differences in our genes can raise the risk of bleeding or blood clots. Her current project focuses on changes in a protein called tissue factor (TF), which is the first signal that helps the blood start to clot. Having low levels of TF is very rare, and it has not been well studied in many people. Dr. Brake has found a small group of people who have lower TF levels, and she is working to understand how this affects their clotting and bleeding risk. This research will help show how TF deficiency may impact bleeding risk in the wider population.

Huong Chau, PhD, earned her Bachelor of Science in Biomolecular Engineering from Santa Clara University in 2019 and her Ph.D. in Integrative Pathobiology from University of California, Davis in 2024. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Stanford University in the Department of Pediatrics where she works in Dr. Glaivy Batsuli’s lab. The Batsuli Lab’s research focus is on the immune response against coagulation factors missing in hemophilia. 

Hemophilia B is a bleeding disorder that results in bleeding after injuries or even without injury. Treatment involves replacing the missing blood clotting protein factor IX. However, some patients develop “inhibitors,” which are harmful antibodies that the immune system produces that block the treatment from working. Dr. Chau’s research studies why this happens and looks for ways to prevent the body’s natural defense against the factor IX treatments needed by people living with hemophilia B. 

Tomasz received his Pharm.D. degree in 2019 in Pharmacology and Toxicology science from Medical University of Bialystok, Poland, and immediately started his postdoctoral appointment at Vascular Medicine Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, PA. Tomasz's research focuses on the innate immune mechanisms in platelets and neutrophils as well as thrombo-inflammation pathophysiology. He uses cutting-edge intravital microscopy techniques to image in real-time the interplay between neutrophils and platelets during the initial stages of immune system activation. His work has authentic interdisciplinary nature since he studies cross-talk between innate immune signaling in neutrophils, Factor VIII deficiency, liver diseases and macroscale proteomics and genomic profiles of neutrophils and platelets under inflammatory stress. Until now, he proved that neutrophil activation seems to be a key player in the hemophilic arthropathy progression, dedifferentiated sinusoidal endothelium impacts liver-directed gene transfer in Hemophilia-a mice, and that liver to lung microemboli NETs promote Gasdermin-D-dependent inflammatory lung injury in Sickle Cell Disease. Tomasz has been appreciated with multiple awards from national and international societies and institutions as well as his research activities were supported by numerous extramural funding sources. In his scientific and personal life, he proudly follows the University of Pittsburgh's motto - Veritas et Virtus.

Dr. Qian Liang received the MBBS degree in 2010 from Sichuan University and the M.S. degree in 2013 from Shanghai Jiaotong University in China. Dr. Liang worked as a Research Fellow in the Department of Laboratory Medicine in Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, which is a Heamophilia Treatment Centre for hard-to-treat patients in the Southeastern region of China. She received her Ph.D. degree in Laboratory Medicine in 2022, and is currently a visiting postdoctoral fellow in Professor Renhao Li’s lab in the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorder Center, Department of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine. Her research work focuses on the structure and function of von Willebrand factor, as well as the development of related diagnostics and therapeutics, and she has published 6 research papers.

I received by BS in Biochemistry from the University of Arizona in 2012. I then received my PhD at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County while studying under Dr. Elsa D. Garcin. I am currently a postdoctoral scholar at Western Washington University under Dr. P. Clint Spiegel. Our research focuses on the structure/function of activated coagulation factor VIII and factor IX and how the two proteins bind to lipid membranes to form the intrinsic tenase complex. The results from this research will elucidate the mechanism behind hemophilia A/B-associated missense mutations and how factor replacement therapeutics can be rationally designed for increased pharmacokinetic properties.

Dr. Sean Quinn is a postdoctoral fellow at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the laboratory of Dr. Rodney Camire. Dr. Quinn received his doctoral degree in Biochemistry/Biophysics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2019. For his JGP project, Dr. Quinn will develop novel monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that bind and protect FV or activated FV (FVa) to promote coagulation in the context of hemophilia. To accomplish this goal, Dr. Quinn will use biochemical and biophysical approaches to map the epitopes where lead candidate mAbs bind to FV/FVa. Moreover, he plans to assess the efficacy of these mAbs using a combination of in vivo approaches with an already established hemophilia mouse model. Long-term, Dr. Quinn’s goal is to become an independent investigator to develop approaches to modulate anticoagulant pathways to treat bleeding.

Dr. Yuan Zhang obtained her Ph.D in microbiology from Wuhan University, China, in 2015. Her Ph.D work focused on creating new or more effective genetically engineered vaccines against human viruses. In 2016, she joined Dr. Bin Zhang’s group as a postdoctoral fellow at the Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic. She works on understanding the mechanism of receptor-mediated ER-Golgi transport of secreted glycoproteins. In her JGP project, she aims to identify B domain signals that direct FVIII into the LMAN1-MCFD2 secretory pathway, and investigate the importance of the B domain in FVIII biosynthesis and LMAN1-MCFD2 mediated secretion in mouse models. She hopes that her research will provide important information for guiding recombinant FVIII production and the design of hemophilia A gene therapies.

Vishal Srivastava is working as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Bin Zhang’s lab at the Genomic Medicine Institute, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic. He received his Ph.D. from the CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute/Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. As a recipient of the JGP Fellowship, he will study the role of proteostasis regulators/chaperone-like small molecules and ribosomal readthrough compounds to correct protein impairments due to missense and nonsense mutations in hemophilia A (HA) patients. He hopes to develop innovative therapeutic approaches for treatment of HA patients based on their mutations.

I am currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, Texas, under the mentorship of Professor L. Vijaya Mohan Rao. My research focuses on elucidating novel mechanisms by which FVIIa provides hemostatic and anti-inflammatory effects and the relevance of these mechanisms in treating bleeding disorders and hemophilic arthropathy. I graduated from the University of Calcutta, India, in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology. My post-graduation was also in Microbiology from India in 2011. I completed my doctoral studies in 2019 from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India, where I focused on understanding the mechanistic details of tissue factor-factor VIIa-induced progression of human breast cancer. I published several peer-reviewed articles from my Ph.D. thesis work in journals, such as Journal of Biological Chemistry, Cellular Signaling, and Molecular Carcinogenesis. I enjoy playing video games, reading novels, and cooking various Indian foods.

From University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler (UTHSCT). Dr. Magisetty completed Ph.D. doctoral training on the evaluation of FVIIa-EPCR interactions in the management of hemophilic arthropathy and is enthusiastic looking forward to the postdoctoral training on the “Role of EPCR-FVIIa anti-inflammatory signaling in the pathogenesis and treatment of hemophilic arthropathy”.

Dr. Megan Rost is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. She received a B.S in biochemistry and biotechnology from Michigan State University, and her Ph.D. in molecular and developmental biology at the University of Cincinnati - Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Her graduate work focused on understanding vascular endothelial development using zebrafish as a model organism. In July 2015, she joined the lab of Dr. Jordan Shavit in the Department of Pediatrics and Hematology/Oncology at University of Michigan. For her 2016 JGP research fellowship project, she will be using the zebrafish model to analyze blood clot structure and function in the presence and absence of von Willebrand Factor. In studying this, Dr. Rost will be elucidating how arterial thrombus formation occurs in the absence of VWF, aiding in uncovering possible new therapeutic targets for VWD treatment.

Klaus Bonazza received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Vienna University of Technology. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Boston Children's Hospital and appointed at Harvard Medical School, mentored by Dr. Timothy Springer. His field of interest is the ultra-large concatemeric protein von Willebrand factor (VWF), which accounts for the adaptability of hemostasis to different flow conditions in the blood vessels.

At moderate, physiological flow VWF has a packed, "bird nest's" shape whereas strong elongational flow conditions, occurring downstream of vascular restrictions or injuries, induce a transition to a threat-like, elongated state. On top of this overall unpacking, tensile forces, which are exerted on the chain and transmitted by its A1 domain, cause local conformational changes which activate binding of thrombocyte receptor Glycoprotein Ib (GPIbα) to initiate coagulation. With his JGP fellowship award, Dr. Bonazza will pioneer a new method to obtain structural insights into force dependent VWF unpacking, A1 deformation and GPIbα binding based on hydrogendeuterium exchange under elongational flow conditions.

Dr. Tine Wyseure obtained her Master’s degree in Drug Discovery and Development, and earned her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Since 2015, she has been a research associate in the lab of Dr. Laurent Mosnier at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. Dr. Wyseure’s 2016 JGP research fellowship award project is focused on investigating the effects of impaired TAFI activation in hemophilia on the progression of hemophilic joint disease. The lack of active TAFI worsens joint bleeding and chronic inflammation and drives the striking development of fragile blood vessels in diseased joints. In search of the missing link, Dr. Wyseure has discovered a novel paradigm on how the formation of new blood vessels is controlled by TAFI and suggests that patients with hemophilia may lack this control switch, causing the formation of unstable and leaky blood vessels.

Dr. Laura Sommerville graduated cum laude from Messiah College and then obtained her MS and PhD degrees in cellular and molecular biology from Temple University. Her graduate work and doctoral dissertation produced several awards and publications in peer reviewed publications. She has been a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Maureane Hoffman at Duke University since July 2014. Dr. Sommerville's 2015 JGP research fellowship award project is on understanding the loss of perivascular tissue factor during angiogenesis in hemophilia.

Per Dr. Fu, the JGP provided her with the opportunity to work on hemophilia, as well as von Willebrand disease. After the completion of her JGP project, Dr. Fu remained in the bleeding disorder field.

Dr. Chappell's research project will develop a model for characterizing bleeding in hemophilia and particularly in joints. Using mouse models of hematoma formation and knee joint bleeding, Dr. Chappell will use 3D fluorescent imaging technology in "living" hemophilia B mice to better trace bleeding over time- from induction of a bleed to its resolution. This project will provide additional insights on the basic science underlying hemophilic bleeds, not to mention the optimal interventions and timing of treatment to potentially prevent damage caused by bleeds. Dr. Chappell earned her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from UNC Chapel Hill in 2013. She will pursue her research under the mentorship of Dr. Dougald Monroe, Professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology, UNC School of Medicine and the UNC McAllister Heart Institute.

Dr. Noh's research will utilize induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and manipulate them in vitro to expand production of megakaryocytes and platelets that express therapeutic proteins, including FVIII. The project will further determine whether this system of autologous platelets which overexpress FVIII can be delivered directly to the site of injury and hemorrhage, thereby circumventing and evading neutralization by alloantibody inhibitors in hemophilia A. Dr. Noh received her Ph.D. in Preventive Pharmacology from Seoul National University in South Korea. She has been a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Mitchell Weiss' lab at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia since 2012. Dr. Noh is currently being mentored in this JGP project by Dr. Mortimer Poncz at CHOP.

The goal of Dr. Chen's research is to examine a method for selectively expanding hematopoietic stem cells expressing the factor VIII transgene. She will also examine the immune consequences of this approach, based on the idea that gene transfer in platelets evades immune recognition. This research has the potential to elicit important clues to developing an approach for gene therapy of hemophilia A and hemophilia A with inhibitors.

Dr. Chen earned a PhD in hematology from Fujian Medical University in China. She already has more than 27 papers published in the Chinese medical literature. Her research in hemophilia and gene therapy will be under the mentorship of Dr. Qizhen Shi, MD, PhD, Associate Investigator at the Blood Research Institute and Assistant Professor of Pediatric Hematology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Dr. Yee earned his undergraduate Credentials from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before receiving his doctorate from Rice University. His eventual goal is to operate an independent research laboratory in the field of bioengineering with a focus on understanding molecular mechanisms of hemostasis, thrombosis and vascular diseases. Dr. Yee's research project deals with factor VIII and its adhesion to its chaperone protein, von Willebrand factor. In these experiments, fragments of von Willebrand factor are screened for optimal factor VIII stabilization. By further studying the architecture of the "Factor VIII-von Willebrand Factor" complex, Dr. Yee seeks to gain insight to improve designs of novel therapeutics.

Per Dr. Kempton, the JGP assisted her in determining the direction of her future research. As a result of her JGP project, Dr. Kempton was published in ATVB and published several abstracts.

Per Dr. Tenenbaum, the JGP provided him with the necessary framework to complete his Postdoctoral Fellowship at Duke University Medical Center and his first academic position at SUNY, where he is currently a Professor specializing in RNA Nanotechnology and Genomics. Although he has not remained in the field of hematology, his current research does intersect with many diseases, including those in the field of hematology (and specifically, hemophilia). The intersection is in relation to gene therapy technology that he is developing.

Per Dr. Katzman, the Judith Graham Pool Research Fellowship in Hemophilia from the National Hemophilia Foundation, that he received in 1986, was extremely formative. This initial support was the starting point that led to 25 years of productive research in HIV/AIDS, during which he believes he made significant contributions to understanding the mechanism of retrovirus integration (and the introduction of integrase inhibitors into clinical practice for treating HIV infection was particularly gratifying). The JGP Fellowship allowed him to transition during his Infectious Diseases Fellowship in a new direction. Having worked with Dr. Michael Lederman in the Department of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland for two years on the immune dysfunction in HIV-infected hemophiliacs, this grant allowed him to enter the basic science laboratory of Jonathan Leis in the Department of Biochemistry, where he remained for 3 years in what — in essence — was a 5-year Fellowship in Infectious Diseases. Having gained this extra training, he was then prepared to obtain an independent faculty position and he moved to the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and Penn State College of Medicine in the Departments of Medicine and Microbiology & Immunology in 1989. He continues in this faculty position, where he has combined basic research on retroviral integration with the clinical care of persons with HIV and other infectious Diseases, though he did close his basic science lab at the end of 2011. A description of his research and career record is available at: https://profiles.psu.edu/profiles/display/111718

Dr. Xuejie Chen is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Darrel Stafford at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before joining Dr. Stafford’s lab, she received her Ph.D. degree in Cell Biology from Beijing Normal University, P. R. China. In her JGP Fellowship project, Dr. Chen aims to study the contributions of extravascular factor IX (FIX) to blood coagulation and to search for FIX variants that could efficiently displace the endogenous dysfunctional FIX in hemophilia B patients. To achieve this goal, Dr. Chen will study the binding between FIX and the subendothelial basement membranes, mainly type IV collagen, and use the site-directed random mutagenesis library to screen for tighter binding FIX molecules. In doing so, she hopes to identify a FIX variant that can be used in hemophilia B patients for better coagulation therapies.

Dr. Kari Lavik is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan in the laboratory of Dr. Jordan Shavit. She received a B.A. in biology from Case Western Reserve University, and her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from The University of Toledo. Her graduate work focused on the study of cancer motility and metastasis through which she became interested in using zebrafish as a model for human disease. In February of 2017, Dr. Lavik joined the Shavit Laboratory in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan to use zebrafish for the study of bleeding and clotting disorders. For her 2018 JGP fellowship project, she will model hemophilia in the zebrafish, looking for novel species-specific regulators of hemostasis. By delving deeper into the genetic mechanisms that underlie the intrinsic pathway in zebrafish, Dr. Lavik will look for novel gene interactions that can be therapeutically targeted in patients with hemophilia.

Dr. Laura Haynes received her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Vermont where she studied how flow conditions throughout the vasculature affect thrombin generation, as well as the role of the platelet membrane in modulating the structure/function of the platelet associated prothrombinase complex. Dr. Haynes is currently a research fellow with Dr. David Ginsburg at the University of Michigan. During her JGP fellowship, she will use phage-display technology coupled with high throughput DNA sequencing to make an exhaustive index of the mutations in plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) that prolong its half-life while not being deleterious in the inhibition of its canonical targets urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA). In doing so, she hopes to identify a PAI-1 variant that can downregulate the fibrinolytic process. Dr. Haynes will also implement similar technology to engineer a PAI-1 variant that inhibits activated protein C (APC), thereby prolonging thrombin generation. She hopes that this research will lead to potential therapeutic agents to treat hemophilia and other bleeding disorders.

Dr. Esther Cooke received her Ph.D. from the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine at the University of Leeds, U.K., where she studied the role of fibrinogen phosphorylation in thrombosis. Dr. Cooke is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Annette von Drygalski, at the University of California San Diego, and in collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. Laurent Mosnier at the Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Cook's JGP Fellowship project will focus on pathological mechanisms associated with joint bleeding, re-bleeding, and the development of hemophilic arthropathy. Dr. Cooke will perform comprehensive gene expression analyses to explore key molecular markers and pathways that drive soft tissue inflammation and vascular changes in joints after bleeding. In this way, she hopes to identify new therapeutic targets and develop novel treatment strategies to down-regulate these processes, thereby reducing re-bleeding tendency and slowing the progression of hemophilic arthropathy.

Dr. Christopher Ng was a pediatric hematology/oncology fellow at the University of Colorado - Anschutz Medical Campus. Dr. Ng attended medical school at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and completed his pediatrics residency at the University of Washington/Seattle Children's Hospital. Dr. Ng received the NHF-Baxalta Clinical Fellowship in 2013. Dr. Ng's 2015 JGP research fellowship award project focused on a multi-system evaluation of von Willebrand factor function in Type 1 von Willebrand Disease mutations.

Dr. Parthasarathy's research will tackle two important biological issues in coagulation - namely how procofactor FVIII converts to the active cofactor form (FVIIIa) and binds to IX and X, and the location of FVIII in generating the active Xase complex. Results from this study will provide molecular and biochemical insights into the role of FVIIIa in regulating hemostasis and further elucidate the interactions between coagulation complexes. Dr. Parthasarathy obtained his Masters in Biotechnology from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Kansas in 2011. He has been a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Rodney Camire at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia since July 2011. This award has been made possible through a generous donation from Hemophilia of Georgia, Inc.

Dr. Satish Nandakumar is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Vijay Sankaran at the Boston Children's Hospital. Previously, he did his graduate work at the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. In his JGP Fellowship project, Dr. Nandakumar aims to develop a novel gene therapy approach for hemophilia that involves activation of the endogenous factor VIII or IX genes within hematopoietic stem cells by taking advantage of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene activation system. This work has the potential to benefit patients with mild hemophilia mutations.