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Our Team

Garofano Luciano headshot

Luciano Garofano

research asst. professor
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Fulvio D'Angelo

research asst. professor
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Aram Ko

scientist
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Simona Migliozzi

associate scientist
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Mohammad Hasanain

Associate Scientist
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Takuma Nakashima

associate scientist
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Chandan Sona

associate scientist
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Fan Wu

assistant scientist
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Meng Yu

Assistant Scientist
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Jichang Han

Assistant Scientist
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Sho Tamai

Post Doctoral Fellow
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Xiaokong (Jenson) Gao

Post Doctoral Fellow
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Giuseppe Scarfuro

Post Doctoral Fellow
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Bruno Adabbo

post doctoral fellow
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Monika Chojnacka

post doctoral fellow
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Chihyi Liao

Post Doctoral fellow
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Jessica Chimene Fernandes

Senior Research Associate
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Saloni Jain

Senior Research Associate
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Sophia De Jesús Lino

Research Associate
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Fabio Agistri

Research Associate
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Nadezda Gryaznova

Ph.D. Student
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Pedro Manuel Davila

Sr applications software developer
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Reinaldo Marroquin

Lab Technician
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Previous Members

Young Taek (Michael) Oh

Associate Scientist
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Kosuke Aoki

Kosuke Aoki

Neurosurgeon
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Meng Yu

Meng Yu is an Assistant Scientist at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center (SCCC) within the University of Miami. She obtained her bachelor's degree in Biological Science from Anhui Normal University, followed by a doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from a collaborative program between the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) and ShanghaiTech University. During her postdoctoral tenure at the Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, Meng concentrated on drug discovery for colorectal cancer targeting the Wnt signaling pathway. In 2023, she joined the research team led by Professor Anna Lasorella, where she focuses on identifying druggable divers of glioblastoma.

Fan Wu

Fan Wu is an assistant scientist in Professor Antonio Iavarone and Anna Lasorella’s lab.Fan got his PhD degree of biochemistry and molecular biology from School of Basic Medicine Peking Union Medical College at 2015. After that, he joined in Professor Tao jiang’s lab as a post doctor. From 2017.12 to 2022.11, Fan worked at Department of Molecular Neuropathology, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute. His interest is to find subtypes and uncover the immune suppressive microenvironment of gliomas.

 

Giuseppe Scarfuro

Giuseppe has always been passionate about Biology and natural systems since a child. He decided to study biological sciences to pursue his passion and fell in love with Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. After his Bachelor's Degree in biological sciences he decided to specialize in molecular biology and biochemistry, and graduated with honors at University of Naples Federico II. After his Master's degree he embarked on a voluntary internship at Precision Medicine Department at University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" with research purposes. He is currently working as a Research Associate at University of Miami.

 

Simona Migliozzi

Dr. Simona Migliozzi received her PhD in Molecular Oncology in 2019. She is currently an Assistant Scientist with an expertise in computational biology. Her interest is developing computational tools to dissect glioma ecosystem heterogeneity and identify more effective targeted therapies. She plays a key role in the integration of multi-omics platforms for the stratification of clinically informative glioma subtypes. She is currently working on spatial transcriptomics data from glioma samples to identify tumor cell subpopulations and to address whether and how the spatial interactions between malignant and non- malignant cells shape the GBM ecosystem and explore their regulatory effects on interacting cells and downstream biological signaling. She recently got the K99-R00 NIH Pathway to Independence Award mentored by Dr. Iavarone.

 

Luciano Garofano

Luciano is a Research Assistant Professor for the Division of Biostatistics at the Department of Public Health Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of Sannio, in Benevento, Italy. During his doctoral studies, he contributed to the generation of a computational framework for the inference of gene regulatory networks and uncovered the Master Regulators responsible of the transcriptomic program active in the glioblastoma (GBM) harboring the FGFR3-TACC3 fusion gene, a genetic alteration present in 5% of all cancer.

As a post-doctoral research scientist at the Columbia University, he developed innovative computational approaches integrating multi-omics data to dissect the glioblastoma heterogeneity and identified functional subtypes with distinct prognosis and therapeutic vulnerabilities. He also developed an unbiased protein kinase signaling network for the selection of Master Kinases as druggable targets differentially active in each GBM subtypes.

His research interest at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center is to investigate the molecular mechanisms driving the evolution of glioma, in particular GBM, and dissect the tumor and non-tumor components within the glioma microenvironment.

Aram Ko

Aram has obtained a bachelor's and a master’s degree in Biology from Sungkyunkwan University and a doctorate in Biology from Yonsei University in Korea. Her research has been focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms behind cancer development. Specifically, she has studied E3 ubiquitin ligases and deubiquitinases and their role in regulating the protein homeostasis of oncoproteins or tumor suppressors. She has also explored how the dysregulation of these molecules can lead to cancer development and ways to target them for cancer therapy. She has now broadened her research interests to include the study of epigenetic regulation in cancer.

 

Saloni Jain

Saloni is a genetic engineer from India who moved to the United States to advance her career in genetics research. She earned her M.S. in Medical Genetics and Genomics from Tulane University. Her research interests include Cancer Genetics, Gene Therapy, and Epigenetics. She works as a Senior Research Associate in the Iavarone/Lasorella group, focusing on projects involving 3D cortical organoids, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), tissue culture, and molecular biology techniques. Her work contributes to understanding neurological diseases and cancer at the cellular level. With her academic background and practical experience, Saloni aims to support advances in cancer research and therapies.

 

Mohammad Hasanain

Mohammad Hasanain was born in a small city Jaunpur, in Uttar Pradesh, India. His Ph.D. work focused on exploring mechanism of action of lead molecules with anticancer activity that were identified through screening, with particular emphasis on role of apoptosis and autophagy in promoting cancer cell death. His major focus was to understand crosstalk between autophagy and apoptotic machinery in the development of new chemotherapeutic agents.

After completing Ph.D., he joined the Dr. Iavarone and Dr. Lasorella Lab in January 2020 in Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University in The City of New York. Afterwards, he moved with the lab in University of Miami Health System (Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center) in September 2022 and continued his work. Hasanain's major work focused on investigating the glioblastoma micro-environment, self-renewing properties of glioma stem cells (GSCs) and the driving force behind glioblastoma (GBM) growth and tumor microenvironment (TME). His larger goals in biomedical research are to develop and use mouse model of GBM, to uncover mechanisms and to translate the findings to human GBM therapeutic targets.

Jichang Han

Jichang is an Assistant Scientist at the SCCC of the University of Miami. He completed his Doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology through a joint program between the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) and ShanghaiTech University. From 2020 to 2022, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS, where he was awarded grants from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation and the National Natural Science Foundation. In 2022, he joined Professor Antonio Iavarone’s team. His current research focuses on exploring the interactions between tumor and non-tumor cells in glioblastoma, supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program.

Nadezda Gryaznova

Nadezda Gryaznova is a Ph.D. student. She got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Miami. Nadezda joined the Lab as a master's student in 2022 and after an excellent completion of the degree she continues to work as a doctoral student. Ms. Gryaznova's project focuses on immunohistochemical analysis of glioblastoma subtypes.

Xiaokong (Jenson) Gao

Jenson is a postdoctoral associate in the lab. He earned his M.D. degree from Central South University in China, an M.S. from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. from SUNY Upstate Medical University. He is interested in studying ubiquitinomics to explore novel vulnerabilities in GBM. When he is out of the lab, he enjoys cooking and playing basketball.

Jessica Chimene Fernandes

Jessica is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Miami/SCCC at Dr. Iavarone’s and Dr. Lasorella’s lab. She earned her bachelor's degree in Biomedical Science at the Federal University of Parana in Brazil, and her master's degree at Instituto Carlos Chagas/Fiocruz. During her master’s degree she focused on the development of bi-specific antibodies for cancer, and she has more than 10 years' experience in Research Laboratories working with Cell culture, Molecular Biology, Cellular biology, Laboratory management/Biosafety and Animal models. Currently she supports the laboratory handling brain tumor cell cultures, mouse colony management, and general laboratory organization.

Sophia De Jesús Lino

Sophia earned her B.S. in Biological Sciences with a dual minor in Chemistry and Psychology. She received her degree from Florida State University, where she also participated in geochemistry research at the National High Magnetic-Field Laboratory. She then became an associate at the Baptist Hospital Cardio-oncology research team at Wake Forest Medical School. Sophia joined the Dr. Iavarone/Dr. Lasorella Lab in 2023 and looks forward to building her experience and pursuing her master's degree.

Fulvio D'Angelo

Fulvio D'Angelo currently serves as a Research Assistant Professor at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. His primary research endeavors center around the genomic profiling of both sporadic and syndromic gliomas. His goal is to identify genetic alterations pivotal in driving gliomagenesis and the subsequent evolution of tumors. Fulvio D'Angelo earned his master’s degree in Medical Biotechnologies in 2006, followed by the completion of his PhD in Genetics in 2011 at the University of Naples Federico II. Post PhD, Fulvio D'Angelo's focus shifted to emerging high-throughput sequencing technologies. Since 2017 he has been an integral part of the research groups led by Prof. Antonio Iavarone and Prof. Anna Lasorella. His current research involves the comprehensive molecular profiling of clinical and experimental samples aiming to uncover critical insights into the nature of glioma.

Kosuke Aoki

Kosuke Aoki is a neurosurgeon in Japan. Over the past decade he has dedicated his career to multi-omics analyses of brain tumors, unraveling the intricate molecular landscapes that underlie these complex conditions. Currently his focus is on advancing analyses in single-cell RNA sequencing, aiming to gain deeper insights into the heterogeneity of cellular populations and contribute to the field's understanding of neuro-oncology.

Bruno Adabbo

Bruno is a Post-doctoral fellow in Computational and Quantitative Biology with a solid background in Mathematics and Statistics. Following the completion of his master’s degree he directed his theoretical expertise towards advancing cancer research, demonstrating a dedicated commitment to making substantial contributions to the scientific community. His research interests span a wide spectrum, including chromatin remodeling, genome architecture and spatial transcriptomics. His primary focus is on the computational and modeling aspects of cancer biology, which are pivotal for making advancements in the understanding and treatment of cancer in the era of big data.

Takuma Nakashima

Takuma is a board-certified neurosurgeon from Japan. After his seven years of training as a neurosurgeon, he started to pursue a research career to uncover the fundamental mechanisms underlying malignant brain tumors. Since the beginning of his scientific career, he developed computational biology skills through analysis of multi-omics sequencing data including WGS, WES, RNA-seq, EPIC DNA methylation array, WGBS, ATAC-seq, and Single-cell RNA sequencing. His research interest at the Dr. Iavarone and Dr. Lasorella lab is to establish reliable computational pipelines to analyze liquid biopsy samples (cfDNA and cfRNA) from the blood of diffuse gliomas and adopt them to analyze glioma evolution utilizing longitudinal samples and to uncover the transcriptomic programs activated in glioblastoma harboring FGFR3-TACC3 fusion.

Chandan Sona

Chandan Sona currently serves as an Associate Scientist at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. His primary research focuses on understanding the tumor connectome and its role in treatment resistance in glioblastoma. His overarching goal is to identify tumor connectomes and elucidate their contributions to cancer progression and therapy resistance.

Chandan earned his master’s degree in 2012 from the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, India. He completed his PhD in Neuroscience at the CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India, in 2018. Following his PhD, he undertook over five years of postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University, further honing his expertise in neuroscience and metabolism.

In November 2024, Chandan joined the laboratories of Professor Iavarone and Professor Anna Lasorella to advance his research on the role of connectomes in tumor progression and treatment resistance in glioblastoma. His work aims to bridge fundamental neuroscience and cancer biology, contributing to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for this aggressive cancer.

Sho Tamai

Sho earned his Ph.D. from Kanazawa University (Japan), in which he worked as a neurosurgeon. At Kanazawa University, he specialized in brain tumor surgery, and engaged drug repurposing to find a new treatment for malignant tumors as a research scientist. He is interested in precision medicine and treatment resistance of brain tumors. As a member of the Iavarone/Lasorella group, he looks to use in-vivo and in-vitro mechanisms to study tumor resistance.

Monika Chojnacka

Monika received her PhD in Cancer Biology from the University of Miami in 2024, specializing in the computational genomics of hematological B-cell malignancies. Prior to her PhD, she worked at Genomic Health (now Exact Sciences), a biotech company in the Bay Area, for 3 years learning first hand how diagnostic gene panels are commercialized and approved through regulatory agencies. However, her passion for translational research brought her back to academia. Today as a postdoctoral associate in the Iavarone/Lasorella group, she is eager to apply her computational skills to a challenging tumor type, in order to better understand the genomic basis of tumorigenesis of gliomas and glioblastomas. In the future, she aims to leverage her experience in biotech with continued research pursuits to brings novel therapeutic approaches to patients.

Chihyi Liao

Chihyi is a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Iavarone's and Dr. Lasorella's lab. He earned his M.D. degree from Peking University and completed his neurosurgery residency training at Beijing Tiantan Hospital. From 2021 to 2024, he conducted his Ph.D. research in Dr. Jiang Tao's lab at the Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, focusing on identifying critical factors influencing tumor cell fate and developing novel therapeutic strategies for gliomas. His research interests include the epigenetic regulation of gliomas and the interactions between tumor cells and normal cells.

Fabio Agistri

Fabio Agistri is a neurobiologist with a Bachelor’s degree in Human Biotechnology and a Master’s degree in Neurobiology. He has experience in studying the immune microenvironment of brain tumors, with a particular focus on neuro-oncology, personalized medicine, and histological and epigenetic approaches.

Pedro Manuel Davila

Pedro Davila is a Senior Applications Software Developer and Senior Systems Administrator at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center (SCCC) and the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) at the University of Miami. He joined IDSC in 2011 as part of the high-performance computing (HPC) core, after serving as a systems administrator and application developer with the University of Miami Information Technology Academic Services group.

Pedro deploys, optimizes, and maintains bioinformatics pipelines and computational tools that process and analyze large-scale biomedical research data in HPC environments. He works closely with researchers to design, debug, and automate complex workflows, ensuring their studies are efficient, reproducible, and scalable. Pedro also provides end-user support and systems administration efforts for the IDSC HPC core, where he proactively identifies issues, troubleshoots problems, tunes systems for performance, and manages software environments across multiple HPC clusters.

Proud to be a lifelong Miami Hurricane, he earned both his B.S. (2003) and M.S. (2005) in Computer Science from the University of Miami.

Reinaldo Marroquin

Reinaldo Marroquin is a lab technician working in our group. He is responsible for maintaining lab equipment and supplies, ensuring smooth daily operations and organization within the research environment. Reinaldo also assists in the mouse facility, supporting animal care. His attention to detail and reliability play a key role in the lab’s overall efficiency and success. Looking ahead, Reinaldo plans to pursue a career in law enforcement and aims to become a police officer for Miami-Dade County.

Young Taek (Michael) Oh

Dr. Michael (Young Taek) Oh was an Associate Scientist at the University of Miami/UHealth, where he focused on advancing research in health sciences. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Health Sciences and Technology from Sungkyunkwan University and holds a B.S. in Biotechnology from Yonsei University in Korea. Prior to his role in our lab, Dr. Oh completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center and held research positions at the National Cancer Center in Korea. His academic and professional journey reflects a strong commitment to biomedical research and translational science.