Speaker Profiles
Marc Abrahams, Ph.D.
Marc Abrahams, applied mathematician and entrepreneur, is the editor and co-founder of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research. He writes about research to make people laugh, and then think. His team comprises the very same people who from 1955-1994 founded and edited the Journal of Irreproducible Results. In 1994, when the journal's publisher decided to abandon the magazine, they decided to abandon that publisher. Unable to get use of the old name, they started the new publication, the Annals of Improbable Research. And yes, they say, "we are AIRheads." Named the "Puck of Science," Abrahams is master of ceremonies for the Ig Nobel Prizes, awarded yearly in a gala ceremony at Harvard University. A prolific writer, Abrahams is author of The Man Who Cloned Himself, Why Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans, and The Ig Nobel Prizes, and he has authored the librettos for 15 science mini-operas. See, too, www.improbable.com.
Peter J. Basser, Ph.D.
Dr. Basser received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and joined the NIH right after. Within NICHD he is the director of the Program on Pediatric Imaging and Tissue Sciences, where his research focuses on developing new quantitative imaging biomarkers that are both sensitive and selective, and can be used in screening, diagnosis, prognosis assessment, and even therapy, primarily relating to neurodevelopment. Additionally, the Program aims to transfer these new methodologies "from bench to bedside" and to various biomedical research communities. Those technologies include diffusion tensor NMR and MRI (DTI), which Dr. Basser co-invented. For two decades Dr. Basser has been working on translating this novel technology to the clinic and making it a basic research tool to probe brain architecture and organization. DTI has had a transformative impact in radiology, neurosciences, and even psychiatry, helping scientists and physicians study the structure and organization of the normal, developing, and diseased brain.
Ann C. Bonham, Ph.D.
Dr. Bonham is the Chief Scientific Officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, DC. She directs the AAMC's array of programs that support all aspects of research and training. As the primary AAMC contact for external research organizations, Dr. Bonham addresses policy issues affecting research through engagement with key officials in the public and private sectors. Dr. Bonham also works closely with AAMC constituents to address their research needs and represents the association on the national stage in forums dealing with research policy and administration.
Prior to joining the association, Dr. Bonham served as executive associate dean for academic affairs and professor of pharmacology and internal medicine at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, where she oversaw the school's research, undergraduate medical education, and faculty academic programs. Dr. Bonham received her doctoral degree in pharmacology from the University of Iowa College of Medicine and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University School of Medicine.
Preethi Chandran, Ph.D.
Dr. Chandran is an NIBIB/NICHD postdoctoral fellow who likes to dwell in the murky waters bordering biology and engineering. She got her PhD at the University of Minnesota and did postdoctoral stints at Columbia University, NY, and UC Berkeley, CA. In the process she has studied the filament macromolecules and arrangements, which give structural integrity to the extracellular and intracellular matrix, from a multi-scale modeling and experimental perspective. She considers herself a civil engineer entrapped by the intricacies of cell and tissue architecture. During her time at the NIH, she has entered the sacred confines of the cell nucleus. She is, among other things, looking at the complex structures formed by DNA and polyvalent ions, and their application in nanomedicine.
Melissa D. Cunningham, Ph.D.
Dr. Cunningham transitioned from the bench to grant administration in June 2010 when she joined the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CRMRP) with the Department of Defense. As a Science Officer in the Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP), she manages grants awarded to prostate cancer researchers and is involved with a variety of other efforts to help enhance the research funded by CDMRP, such as promoting advanced technology development. Before joining CDMRP, Dr. Cunningham trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health. During her fellowship Dr. Cunningham discovered her interest in grants management after working part-time with the Program Office in NICHD's Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) branch.
Dr. Cunningham graduated from Towson University, summa cum laude, in 2001, with a B.S. in Biology, and earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology from the Pennsylvania State University in 2006. Her areas of expertise include epigenetics, gene regulation, and bioinformatics in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Drosophila melanogaster.
Christelle de Renty, Ph.D.
Dr de Renty received her Ph.D. in Biology and Health from the University of Montpelier, France, where she studied DNA replication mechanisms and dynamics by using yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model system. This was the opportunity to learn a novel and state-of-the-art technique—DNA DNA combing—which allows a high density analysis of single DNA molecule. She joined NICHD in 2009 as a postdoctoral fellow and uses her expertise to study DNA replication and re-replication dynamics in cancer cells.
Kevin Francis, Ph.D.
Dr. Francis received his B.S. from Marshall University and his Ph.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2009. His dissertation research examined mechanisms to promote the survival and neural differentiation of mouse and human embryonic stem cells. In the summer of 2009, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Heiner Westphal in the Program on Genomics of Differentiation at NICHD as an IRTA Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Francis is currently researching mechanisms regulating induced pluripotent stem cell formation, while also applying this technology to disease models of human neurodegeneration.
Jeanne Fringer, Ph.D.
Dr. Fringer received a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. She did her postdoctoral training at NICHD in the laboratory of Thomas Dever, Ph.D., working on translation initiation.
Currently, she works at US Pharmacopeia in the Biologics and Biotechnology laboratory in Rockville, MD. Her job is to develop and validate methods which characterize reference standards for drugs. One of her main areas of interest is developing cell-based assays that measure the potency of drugs such as hormones and growth factors.
Matthias Machner, Ph.D.
Dr. Machner received his Ph.D. from the Carolo-Wilhelmina Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, for his studies on virulence factors from the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. He did postdoctoral training with Ralph Isberg at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA, where he began his studies on Legionnaires' disease, a severe pneumonia caused by the bacterium Legionella pneumophila. Dr. Machner joined NICHD in 2008 as Head of the Unit on Microbial Pathogenesis. His group combines biochemical, genetic, and imaging techniques to identify and characterize molecular processes that allow L. pneumophila to survive and replicate within host cells.
Zigurts Majumdar, Ph.D.
Ziggy Majumdar is a native of Brooklyn, NY, grew up in Westchester County, and got his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, respectively. He came to NICHD in June 2006 as an IRTA postdoctoral fellow working with Bob Bonner in the Laboratory for Integrative and Medical Biophysics. A large part of his work at NIH was collaborative with the National Eye Institute in developing spectral imaging methods to quantify and detect early stages of retinal eye disease, such as age-related macular degeneration. Other work involved dabbling with the application of optical technologies to clinical problems, such as high-throughput, high-resolution laser-based microdissection of tissue and programmable lighting for healthier home and workplace environments. In February 2009 he began work as a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and was promoted to Associate in December 2009. He applies his scientific expertise for government clients that need technical support, which includes developing new research program concepts, reviewing research, and collaborating with researchers and potential technology "end-users" to help bridge the gap between ongoing research and government needs in sectors such as the Department of Defense and Health.
Saravana Murthy, Ph.D.
Dr. Murthy is a research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Peng Loh, in NICHD's Section on Cellular Neurobiology. He studies a novel splice variant of Carboxypeptidase E, ΔN-CPE and its mechanism in epigenetic gene regulation. CPE-ΔN induces tumor metastasis and is a powerful biomarker for predicting future metastasis and recurrence in several human cancers. CPE is also shown to have neuroprotective roles when hippocampal neurons are challenged to oxidative stress, so he is also studying the role of CPE during glucocorticoid mediated stress response. Dr. Murthy completed his master's degree at Bangalore University, India and for his doctorate went to Max Planck Institute, Goettingen, Germany to work on characterization of SK2 channels and its splice variants. He came to the US as a visiting PhD student at the University of Hawaii and later joined Dr. Loh's lab as a visiting fellow; since then he has been working on the epigenetic mechanism of ΔN-CPE.
Xiangyun Qiu, Ph.D.
Xiangyun Qiu went to the University of Science and Technology of China for his Bachelor's degree in physics. He then left China in 1999 to study for his PhD in condensed matter physics at Michigan State University. He made a shift to biophysics as a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, working with Professor Lois Pollack, and then moved to NICHD as a research fellow with Dr. Adrian Parsegian. Since 2010, he has been assistant professor of physics at the George Washington University. His general research interest is the biophysics of nucleic acids and the interface between biomolecules and minerals. The primary experimental technique in his lab is small, medium, and wide angle x-ray scattering.
Christine Torborg, Ph.D.
Dr. Torborg is currently a Health Policy Analyst in the Office of Science Policy and Planning at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. She received her BA in Biology and Chemistry from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN in 2000 and did her graduate work at the University of California, San Diego. While there, she received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to study the role of spontaneous retinal activity in the development of the connections between the retina and the brain in mice. After receiving her PhD in 2004, Dr. Torborg took a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Dr. Chris McBain in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, where she received a PRAT fellowship to study inhibitory interneurons in the hippocampus of juvenile rodents. Starting in the spring of 2010, she did "detail" rotations in two offices in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and was hired for a full-time position there in October of 2010.
Newton Woo, Ph.D.
Dr. Woo is a Pharmacology/Toxicology reviewer in the FDA who evaluates nonclinical data to assess the safety and risk-benefit of various pharmaceutical compounds. Born and raised in Canada, Dr. Woo received his BSc (Pharmacology) from the University of British Columbia and his PhD (Neurophysiology) from the University of Alberta studying various forms of synaptic plasticity in the mammalian brain. He continued his training as a Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under the guidance of Dr. Bai Lu, where he discovered novel roles for neurotrophins in several forms of synaptic plasticity. In his current FDA position, he applies his education and neuroscience expertise in reviewing animal data to assess and extrapolate safety and efficacy of various therapeutic agents as well as enforce regulatory nonclinical standards to ensure the safe use of newly developed drugs in the clinic.
Mark Ziats
Mark Ziats graduated from Clemson University with a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry in 2007. He then spent a year as an NIH Academy fellow in the laboratory of Dr. William Gahl at NHGRI before beginning the NIH-University of Cambridge MD-PhD Graduate Partnership Program in 2008. He completed his first two years of medical school at Baylor College of Medicine and is now pursuing his PhD work in the laboratories of Dr. Owen Rennert at NICHD and Dr. Azim Surani at Cambridge. His thesis work is investigating gene expression, long non-coding RNAs, genomic imprinting, and the role of glia in normal developmental and neurodevelopmental disorders like Autism.
Silviya Petrova Zustiak, Ph.D.
Dr. Zustiak received a doctoral degree in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from University of Maryland Baltimore County and a BS/MS degree in bioelectrical engineering from Technical University, Sofia, Bulgaria. Her masters' research involved the design of a hybrid biosensor for ecological purposes, and her doctoral research was centered on developing and testing synthetic biomaterials for neural tissue engineering. Silviya accepted an IRTA position at NICHD in the beginning of 2010, in the Laboratory of Integrative and Medical Biophysics under Dr. Ralph Nossal. Her postdoctoral research is focused on building a 3D in-vitro platform for cancer drug screening, as well as the application of spectroscopy techniques for the elucidation of transport properties in complex systems. Her professional goal is to obtain a tenure-track faculty position in a Chemical, Biomedical, or Bioengineering Department.
