Core Team Members
Committee Members
Jia Yin, MD, PhD., President
Department of Ophthalmology Jia received her M.D. from the Capital University of Medical Sciences in Beijing, China in 2003 and her Ph.D. from the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Wayne State Medical School in 2008. She started her postdoctoral position at the Kresge Eye Institute in summer 2008 and continues her Ph.D. work in the molecular regulation of corneal wound healing and infection.
Alexandra Harvey, PhD
Department of Physiology
Alex graduated with a PhD in 2004 from the University of Adelaide, Australia. On completion she spent some time working in a commercial setting, before accepting a postdoc at the University of New Orleans. Arriving 2 weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina she spent much of the next 2 years trying to get the lab back up and running before the whole team moved to the Department of Physiology at Wayne State in August 2007. She is investigating the cellular and molecular characteristics of early embryo development and embryonic stem cell pluripotency.
Department of Physiology
Alex graduated with a PhD in 2004 from the University of Adelaide, Australia. On completion she spent some time working in a commercial setting, before accepting a postdoc at the University of New Orleans. Arriving 2 weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina she spent much of the next 2 years trying to get the lab back up and running before the whole team moved to the Department of Physiology at Wayne State in August 2007. She is investigating the cellular and molecular characteristics of early embryo development and embryonic stem cell pluripotency.
Shailender Singh Kanwar, Ph.D.Department of Internal Medicine
I completed my PhD degree in September 2008 from the Department of Biophysics, Panjab University (India) in Molecular Physiology and Membrane Biology. PhD work involved the study of membrane dynamic behavior and characterization of the molecular pathway of apoptosis involving COX-2 inhibitors in colon cancer and histopathological analysis of carcinogenesis.
I started as a postdoctoral fellow in October 2008. My current research efforts focus on the fundamental questions in cancer stem cell biology using colon cancer as a model system. My long-term research objective is to investigate cancer initiation (cancer stem cells), prevention and treatment (identification of novel strategies to block differentiation and to eliminate cancer stem cells); and screening natural products to identify candidates with anti-cancer stem cell activity.
Asfar, Azmi, Ph.D., Vice PresidentDr. Azmi received his PhD in Biochemistry from Aligarh Muslim University India in 2006 and joined as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Fazlul Haque Sarkar’s Lab at Wayne State University. His research work involves identifying the anticancer mechanism of action of small molecule inhibitors of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 as well as specific inhibitors of MDM2 that regulates p53. His other research expertise include ROS, DNA damage/repair and chemoprevention. He is currently serving as the Vice President of the Postdoctoral Association at Wayne State University School of Medicine.
Miloni A. Rathod, Ph.D.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences
She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at Wayne State University in May 2007. She is currently working on adipose tissue remodelling in the laboratory of Dr. James G. Granneman.