Shahana Mahajan, PhD

I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Washington. After completing my undergraduate degree, I started my career as a Research Assistant at Seattle Children’s Research Institute for two years. After joining the lab, I was exposed more to clinical research, which increased my passion and desire for medical research and drug delivery. I am currently a doctoral student in the Biochemistry program at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

My research interest involves nanomedicine and bio-nanotechnology/nanomaterials. I am currently studying how to reduce gene expression by delivering targeted siRNA with synthesized nano-particles.

After completing her undergraduate studies in India, Syeda Maryam Azeem pursued her MS in the USA starting in 2015. She joined Dr. Kathleen Frey’s lab in 2016 in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Long Island University in Brooklyn. While working under Dr. Frey’s supervision, Maryam developed her research interests in structural biology and X-ray crystallography. She used computational and structure-based methods for creating docking models, predicting mutations in the HIV Reverse Transcriptase enzyme, and analyzing protein-ligand interactions.

In 2018, she joined Dr. Daniel Keedy’s lab as Research Assistant, where she focused on understanding how motions of protein structures influence ligand binding. She examined a set of different proteins called Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases which are involved in different diseases including diabetes, breast cancer, and Alzheimer’s. In 2021, she joined Dr. Mahajan's lab to carry out her Ph.D thesis work.

I have completed my bachelor's and Master's degrees in Life science from Gachon University, South Korea. I have research experience in signaling in cancer cells. I have mainly conducted Molecular works such as PCR, western blot, Cloning, and cancer metastasis assay. I am a doctoral student in the MCD program at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Currently, I am researching how Riluzole enhances radiation cancer therapy using bioinformatics.

I completed my bachelor's degree in Life science and Biochemistry from St. Xavier's college Mumbai and pursued my master's degree in Medical Biochemistry from Kasturba medical college, India. During this time, I worked on the anti-cancer activity of a medicinal plant on colon cancer, mainly focusing on its ability to inhibit the process of cell migration and angiogenesis, which are known to play important role in cancer metastasis. I am currently in the Biochemistry PhD program at the Graduate Center, CUNY and my research interests lie in understanding the signaling in cancer and I want to work towards the development of therapeutic strategies for metastatic cancer.

Praveena Naidu is a PhD student in Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology Program. She received a BSc in Biomedical Science from Imperial College London in 2019 with a specialization in infection and immunity. She then graduated with an MPhil from the University of Cambridge in 2020 studying placental macrophages across species. She spent the last year working in an RNA therapeutics lab at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology at A*Star in Singapore, cloning plasmid constructs to validate splice-shifting oligonucleotide therapies. She rotated in the Mahajan lab in Spring 2022.

Thongthai Thavornwatanayong obtained his BA at Rollins College in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and his MS in Biotechnology. His first research experience was with Dr. Kai McKinstry working on T cells and memory immunity against influenza virus, with the hope of gaining new knowledge that could be used to develop a long lasting vaccine. He then worked with Dr. Justine Tigno-Arajuez. Her lab, at the time, focused on the NOD immune signaling pathway in the context of asthma and autoimmunity. After his master’s, he worked with Dr. Goel at the Cancer Center at Einstein College of Medicine in preclinical translational research for colorectal cancer.

I graduated on December 2020 with my Bachelor's degree in Biology with a concentration in biomedical sciences from Troy University. I worked as an undergraduate research student in Dr. Park's microbiology lab researching pathogenic bacterial DNA in Mobile Bays and Dr. Kofman's bioinformatics lab investigating SNPs in microRNA target sites in human MET oncogene. These experiences helped me develop further interest in genetics and cancer biology. Currently, I am a research technician at Mahajan lab where I am learning about osteosarcoma, it’s possible drug delivery mechanisms and other research methods. I plan to pursue my PhD in cancer biology or related fields in the near future.