Officers

Bobby Mendez is a PhD student in the Center for Perinatal Biology on the Cancer, Development, and Regenerative Biology (CDRB) track. He is in the lab of Dr. Arlin B. Blood where the research focus is on fetal physiology, particularly fetal response to chronic and acute hypoxia. His area of interest is in fetal cardiac development and adaptations to hypoxia, in particular, fetal heart rate variability adaptations in response to acute hypoxia during the transition from fetus to newborn following chronic and acute vagotomy.
Email: [email protected]
 

Cedric Lansangan is a third-year PhD student in the Cancer, Developmental, and Regenerative Biology (CDRB) program. As vice president for Basic Sciences Student Council, he assists with the management of the Basic Sciences Student Council activities and their vision. Cedric’s research is focused on the development of novel nanotherapies for the deadly glioma Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), an invasive brain cancer with dismal one-year average survival from diagnosis. His dissertation is centered around synthesizing gold nanoparticles loaded with boron-10 and other ligands for their targeted delivery through the blood-brain barrier and into tumors to mediate boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) of GBM, as assessed by cell culture and murine GBM models. 
Email: [email protected] 

Nana is an MD/PhD student in the Infection Inflammation Immunity program, with research interests in Systems Biology and Immunology. With early (undergrad) training in Biochemistry at Oakwood University, Nana currently studies the interplay between host-pathogen interactions, multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacterial infections, and antibiotic susceptibility. 
Email: [email protected] 

Pedro is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Cancer, Developmental, and Regenerative Biology (CDRB) program. He serves as the treasurer for Basic Sciences Student Council, he is responsible for managing financial transactions, updating and reporting on the budget, collaborating with administrators, and overseeing fundraising efforts for events. As a member of the Dr. Carlos Casiano's laboratory, Pedro's research focuses on identifying mechanisms involved in cross-resistance, a phenomenon where resistance to one drug leads to resistance to another, in prostate cancer. Focusing on the GR-LEDGF/p75 axis, where upregulation of these proteins in enzalutamide- and docetaxel-resistant prostate cancer cells suggests that targeting this network could provide novel strategies to overcome resistance in prostate cancer. 
Email: [email protected] 

Julio Sierra is a third-year graduate student in the Neuroscience, Systems Biology, and Bioengineering program. As academic vice president for Basic Sciences Student Council, he serves as a student representative on the Basic Sciences Admissions and Curriculum Committees. His research focuses on how early environmental factors (diet and stress) impact the neurodevelopment of brain regions that regulate cognition and motivation, increasing susceptibility for maladaptive eating behaviors in adulthood. 
Email: [email protected] 

Jacob is a third-year MD/PhD candidate in the Anatomy program. As the social vice president of the Basic Sciences Student Council, Jacob both plans and coordinates social events to foster community among basic science students. He works in the lab of Dr. Salvador Soriano on Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A (CMT1A), a hereditary neurodegenerative condition that affects his family members. His project involves slowing or reversing cell death through targeting the ferroptosis pathway, a newly described mechanism involving lethal oxidative stress. He hopes to translate anti-ferroptosis therapies into clinical trials, with the ultimate goal of healing CMT1A patients, including his family members.
Email:[email protected] 

Stephen Justinen is a PhD student working on the functional properties of an RNA edit that appears in sheep at high altitude that we suspect to be involved in the acclimatization response to hypoxia. This edit appears on the BK (Big Potassium) ion channel and may affect blood vessel diameter in portions of the cerebrovasculature. Further testing via RNAseq will determine if this edit is systemic or localized to specific tissues, with subsequent bioinformatic analysis examining activation pathway and phylogeny. his research and studying occurs at the labs of Dr. Isaac Kremsky and Dr. David Hessinger. 
Email: [email protected] 

Danielle Lonie Malivert, a third-year PhD candidate in Neuroscience, serves as the Basic Science Student Council Religious Vice President and conducts research in Dr. Pearce’s physiology lab at the Lawrence D. Longo, MD Center for Perinatal Biology. Her work focuses on the effects of hypoxia on neonatal cerebrovascular smooth muscle, hypothesizing that hypoxia acts through the mitochondria to influence neonatal cerebrovascular smooth muscle. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences from Oakwood University, which she obtained in May 2022. Lonie aims to enhance the mechanistic understanding of cerebrovascular responses to neonatal hypoxia, ultimately contributing to the treatment and prevention of related complications. 
Email: [email protected] 

Saul M. Zuniga is a third-year MS student in the Earth and Biological Sciences (EBS) Department. As the EBS representative, he promotes Basic Sciences Student Council events to EBS faculty and staff. He also brings up any concerns from program to the Basic Sciences Student Council and advocates for EBS. His research deals with the reconstruction of the paleoenvironment at a sedimentary bed filled with thousands of dinosaur tracks in Bolivia and the identification of the sedimentological controls which permitted the preservation of the tracks at the site. 
Email: [email protected] 

Nellie Covert is a sixth-year PhD student in the Earth and Biological Sciences Department (EBS). She serves as the senior class representative on the Basic Sciences Student Council (BSSC). Her primary research goal is to analyze mercury accumulation levels in freshwater turtles. The focus of this research is to use the invasive red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) as a bioindicator for the native southwestern pond turtle (Actinemys pallida). These analyses will be completed in tandem with carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis to further understand how the trophic niche of each species impacts mercury concentrations. 
Email: [email protected] 

Zion Shih is an MD/PhD student who graduated from Westmont College triple majoring in engineering physics, chemistry, and biology. She is diving deeply into conditions of vascular compromise such as in neurocognitive conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and why they develop. With diseases that incur dramatic social and financial expenses to society, she is identifying transition points from physiology to pathology to contribute to the translation of molecular mechanisms into therapies to treat neurovascular conditions at the bedside better and to improve quality of life. 
Email: [email protected] 

Kristian Holgersson is a PhD candidate in medicine specializing in radiation oncology and tumor biology. He has a special interest in cardiac toxicity in patients treated with chemoradiation for inoperable stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). He founded the tumor-induced lactic acidosis hypothesis suggesting that tumor-derived metabolites such as lactic acid contributes to cardiac complications seen in these patients. This could potentially be an explanation to one factor of why cancer-related deaths occur. Kristian works together with Dr. Reinhard Schulte who is a pioneer in proton therapy. In his free time, he enjoys nature-related activities. 
Email: [email protected]

Faculty Advisor for BSSC