In the Prensner Lab, we believe that:
John Prensner, MD PhD
Barry J. Glick Early Career Professor of Pediatric Oncology
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Hematology/Oncology
Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry
Member, Rogel Cancer Center
Member, Center for RNA Biomedicine
Affiliate Faculty Member, Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics
Email: [email protected]
Office: Medical Science Research Building II, Room 2560B
Education and Training
BA, Tufts University, 2005
MD, University of Michigan, 2014
PhD, University of Michigan, 2014
Residency in Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital/Boston Medical Center, 2017
Fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children’s Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 2020
Post-doctoral Research Fellowship, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, 2023
Research Interests
Childhood brain tumors, cancer biology, the next frontiers of science
Cristián Valls, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow
B.S., Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Ph.D, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Research Interests
translational medicine; high-dimensional data of biological origin. Complex Systems.
Jim Clauwaert, Ph.D.
Computational Biologist, senior
B.S., Ghent University, Belgium
Ph.D., Ghent University, Belgium
Research Interests
machine learning, -omics, natural language processing, functional genomics, epigenetics
Anwesha Dasgupta, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral fellow
B.S., University of Hyderabad, India
Ph.D., University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Research Interests
RNA biology, cancer therapeutics, translation regulation, ribosomes, high-throughput techniques
Devi Chandran
Undergraduate researcher
B.S., Neuroscience
Research Interests
Pediatric brain tumors and cancer biology
Jack Faulner
Undergraduate researcher
B.S., Neuroscience
Research Interests
Learning new research techniques and learning about cancer genomics
Amanda Falzetta
Research Laboratory Specialist- Senior
B.S., Madonna University, Michigan
Research Interests
Next generation sequencing, cancer genomics
Soumik Saha
Graduate student
B.A., Anthropology and Biochemistry, Vassar College, NY
Research Interests
RNA biology, cancer screening, translation regulation
Yuning Zheng
Computational biologist, associate
B.S. in Bioinfomatics, Shandong University
M.S. in Computational Biology, Carnegie Mellon University
Research Interests
mRNA, AI for Science and Healthcare, predictive modeling, genomics
Jyothsna Ganesh, M.S.
Research Laboratory Specialist – Intermediate
Research Interests
Cancer biology, Molecular biology, Next Generation Sequencing
Simon Kleiner
Undergraduate Researcher
Research Interests
Learning biological lab techniques involved in cancer and RNA
Kaushik Banerjee
Research Investigator
B.S., University of Calcutta
M.S., University of Calcutta
Ph.D., Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute
Research Interests
Adult and pediatric brain tumors, Cell signaling, Immuno-oncology and clinical immunology, Drug resistance mechanisms, Tumor microenvironment and epigenetics, Tumor metabolism.
Harshini Rubarajan
Undergraduate Researcher
B.S. in Biochemistry
Research Interests
Pediatric Cancer, RNA biology, Translational Science
Zhenfang Du
Research Scholar
B.S. in Engineering, Fuzhou University
M.S. in Biomedical Science, Zhejiang University
PhD in Cancer Biology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Research Interests
Microproteins, cancer epigenetics, precision medicine
Former Lab Members
Kelsey Kerr
Master’s Student, Biological Chemistry, 2024-2025
Currently a medical school applicant
Sana Sharba
Undergraduate scholar from 2023 – 2025, University of Michigan College Honors Program
Currently a medical student at Tulane University
Rakesh Murugesan
Undergraduate scholar from 2021-2022
Currently a Medical student at the University of Pennsylvania
Abby Zhong
Undergraduate scholar from 2019-2020
Currently at Veeva Systems
Ian Yannuzzi
Research assistant from 2022-2023
Currently a PhD Doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania