CBI Welcomes Additional New Faculty Mentors!

We have received a significant amount of student applications, as well as an even bigger interest from faculty members who want to help train the next generation of CBI students. We are pleased to announce that four new faculty mentors have been added to our growing mentor list.

Brigitte Gomperts, MD — Professor of Pediatrics and Pulmonary Medicine and Associate Director for Translation at the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center. Her lab studies how adult stem cells repair and regenerate the lungs, using this work to develop new therapies for diseases like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and lung cancer.

Hanna Mikkola, MD, PhD — Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology. Her lab studies how blood stem cells form during embryonic development and how their self-renewal is controlled, aiming to produce functional blood stem cells in the lab for leukemia treatment.

Dinesh Rao, MD, PhD — Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine who treats patients with leukemia and lymphoma. His research investigates how microRNAs and other non-coding RNAs regulate blood stem cell development and drive cancer formation.

Thomas Vallim, PhD — Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Division of Cardiology. His lab studies the regulation of lipid and bile acid metabolism, focusing on how bile acids act as signaling molecules that control cholesterol and liver health.