MONIKA VISHNOI, PhD
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE II

Monika Vishnoi completed her Ph.D. in Cancer Genetics from the SGPGIMS, Lucknow, India, and MSc in Molecular biology and Biotechnology from the GB Pant University, India. She received prestigious senior research fellowship grant from ICMR, India to pursue her cancer research at SGPGIMS, India. She has deep expertise in the field of translational research, liquid biopsy, cancer dormancy residual disease, and brain cancer with personal motivation to provide quality life to cancer patients. She played a critical role in the development of a novel 4D ex vivo lung cancer model to study circulating tumor cells (CTCs) dissemination in cisplatin drug therapy. She also developed CTCs-derived xenograft models to characterize the functional and molecular properties of CTCs during the metastatic brain cascade of breast and melanoma. She joined Dr. Rostomily’s lab to pursue her research on understanding the role of tumor microenvironment in brain cancers including GBM and BMs.  Her current lab interests are to  (i) identify novel targeted signaling pathways involved in matrix modeling and (ii) develop pre-clinical therapeutic screening models to enhance precise drug therapy in brain cancer patients, by using tools such as PDX mice, oncoslice, 3D bioprinting, microfluidic device, etc. She enjoys traveling, gardening, and spending time with family and friends.

Vishnoi M, Scranton RA, Asante SK, Rostomily RC. (2020) Basic Biology of Brain Metastasis. In: Ramakrishna R., Magge R., Baaj A., Knisely J. (eds) Central Nervous System Metastases. Springer, Cham.
“https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-42958-4_2”

SVETLANA MIKHEEVA, MS
SENIOR RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Svetlana earned her MS in Computer Science and engineering from Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Upon graduation, she joined Dr. Kevin Jarrell’s laboratory at Boston University and was involved in research that focused on studies of group II intron as a tool to direct nucleic acid manipulations. Her study on ribozyme catalyzed gene assembly resulted in US patents. Her work contributed to startup company Modular Genetics, focusing on development of gene engineering systems. After moving to Seattle, she continued her work as a molecular biologist at the University of Washington. She was involved in the development of microarray technology for expression profiling. She applied this technology to study human cells following HIV-1 infection and to investigate teratogenic effect of heat shock on mouse embryonic development. She joined the Rostomily lab in 2005 as its manager and worked on expression profiling of genetically engineered glioblastoma cells. She is currently leading viral mediated recombinant DNA transfer studies to investigate mechanisms of glioma stem cell invasion, tumorigenicity and drug resistance in vitro and in vivo. In her free time, she loves to play piano, knit and garden. In fact, her first publication in US was in the Knitting Magazine.

OLUWASEUN OGUNBONA, MD/PhD
NEUROPATHOLOGY FELLOW

Almost immediately after medical training at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, Oluwaseun (Seun) Ogunbona moved to the United States in 2013 for doctoral training in Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He had the privilege of working on various projects using molecular biology techniques, including the use of CRISPR-Cas9 for gene editing in yeast for his thesis project that was done in the laboratory of Dr Steven Claypool aka Mitochondrial Phospholipid Research Center. For the PhD thesis work, he received the American Heart Association, MAA Winter 2015 Predoctoral Fellowship and the Johns Hopkins Young Investigators Day 2018 Alicia Showalters Reynolds Award. Thereafter, he completed Anatomic Pathology/research track residency training at Emory University Hospitals and Affiliated Institutions in Atlanta, Georgia. The research part of the residency training in the department of cell biology laboratory of Dr Victor Faundez, revealed mitochondria-dependent regulation of the expression and secretion of the Alzheimer’s disease risk factor apolipoprotein E (APOE). Currently a neuropathology fellow in the Texas Medical Centre-wide training with major rotations at Houston Methodist Hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, he joined the Rostomily lab with the goal of understanding the role of Translocator protein (TSPO), also known as peripheral benzodiazepine receptor, in neuropathological conditions including CNS malignancies.

MANUEL ROJAS
SENIOR RESEARCH OPERATIONS MANAGER

Manuel currently serves as the Operations Manager for the Glioblastoma and Brain Metastasis (GBM-BM) research lab. He has nearly 8 years of experience in research administration and 13 years in financial services. Mr. Rojas is responsible for being a liaison between the GBM-MB lab, executive leadership and managing the team’s financial and administrative functions. His prior experience derive from serving in the departments of Cardiovascular and Epigenetics at Houston Methodist. Mr. Rojas’ dedication to research stems from being a part of novel discovery and therapeutics that will ultimately help those patients that are in urgent need of healing. As a native Houstonian, Mr. Rojas earned his B.B.A and M.B.A from the University of Houston-Downtown, in 2008 and 2013, respectively