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Kidist Ashami Kiddy grew up in Ethiopia and graduated with a BA in Biology from Berea College. At Berea, she studied how some organisms transitioned from commensalism to parasitism under the mentorship of Dr. Rosen. Next, she worked at Vanderbilt University investigating how the cytoplasmic tail of TBRII regulates fibrosis at the Pozzi lab. Upon completing her undergraduate training, she worked on a project that aimed at developing novel therapeutic strategies for GvHD. Prior joining Harvard, Kiddy studied the role of intrinsic structural disorders in phase separation of the Orb2 protein at USC. Currently as a PhD student, she investigates the role of tumor microenvironment in Kras mutant colorectal cancers at the laboratories of Drs. Haigis, Anderson, and Kuchroo.
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Rachel Davis Rachel grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with dual degrees in Neuroscience and Microbiology. Here, she worked in Dr. Joseph Bergan’s lab studying behavioral neuroscience and completed an honors senior thesis on the cellular origins of hippocampal estrogen. Following graduation, Rachel worked as a research technician in Karen Cichowski’s lab at HMS, where she studied cancer signaling and therapeutics. This experience sparked Rachel’s interest in cancer research, which led her to join Humsa Venkatesh’s lab in the emerging field of cancer neuroscience for her PhD work. Rachel’s thesis project investigates how central and peripheral neurons contribute to the progression of breast cancer brain metastasis. |
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Ruitong Li Ruitong grew up in China and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2017 and a Master's in Computaional Biology from Harvard School of Public Health in 2019. Prior to her PhD study, Ruitong worked in Bill Sellers' lab at the Broad Institute for two years as an Associate Computaional Biologist, which sparked her enthusiasm for cancer biology. Now a PhD student in Gad Getz’s lab, she studies epigenetic regulation during early tumorigenesis and evolution underlying the progression of multiple myeloma.
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Ayantu Temesgen Ayantu was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia before moving to the US in 2013 to pursue her undergraduate studies. She received her BS/MSc degree in Biochemistry from Brandeis University, where she completed her thesis work under the supervision of Dr. Dorothee Kern. In the Kern lab, she studied the evolution and differential regulation of Src and Abl, two protein kinases that are shown to be dysregulated in various types of malignancies. After graduation, she joined the Cell Pharmacology and Translational Biology team at C4 Therapeutics (C4T) where she learned and employed various cell line engineering techniques, to study targeted protein degradation in various disease platforms. In 2019, she started her MD/PhD training at the Harvard-MIT HST Program and later started her PhD in the Harvard Immunology Program under the mentorship of Dr Lydia Lynch. She currently explores the diet specific effects of high-fat-diet induced obesity on cancer progression and on the anti- tumor immunity. |
2023 HONORARY LANDRY FELLOWS
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Jasmine Garcia Jasmine grew up in San José, California and graduated from San José State University with a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and a minor in Chemistry. While there, she worked in Dr. Brandon White’s lab and investigated the therapeutic mechanisms of bioactive polyphenols during breast cancer pathogenesis. Additionally, she joined Dr. Kevin Wang’s lab at Stanford to study the self-renewal properties of honeybee Royalactin. After graduating, Jasmine worked as a technician in Dr. Carolyn Lee’s lab at Stanford to identify novel genetic regulators of high-risk non-melanoma skin cancer. Now a graduate student passionate about basic cancer research, Jasmine has joined Dr. Amy Lee’s lab to investigate translation control in cancer. There she studies how metabolic reprogramming regulates mRNA cap structures to control gene expression and cellular behaviors. |
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Amy Yu Amy grew up in San Mateo, California and graduated in 2019 from the University of California, San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in Human Biology with honors. During her bachelor’s degree she conducted research in Dr. Amir Zarrinpar's lab, where she studied the cardiometabolic benefits of time-restricted feeding in atherosclerosis. To further develop her general interest in the integral role of cell metabolism in disease development, she worked as a research technician at the University of California, San Francisco in Dr. Jennifer Chen’s lab. Her project specifically focused on the anti-fibrotic therapeutic potential of acid ceramidase inhibition in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)-induced liver fibrosis. Now, as a Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Naama Kanarek’s lab, Amy is investigating the compromised anti-tumor function of folate-deprived CD8 T cells.
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