BIO
The proud son of a diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service, I lived in nine different homes across six different countries before graduating from Haverford College in 2013. At Haverford I studied chemistry under the mentorship of Dr. Karin Akerfeldt, captained the Haverford College Angry Young Newts Rugby Club, and wrote my thesis on protein aggregation kinetics and the cytotoxicity of a peptide-based hydrogel. After graduation, I worked for two years with Dr. Celeste Simon at the University of Pennsylvania studying metabolic reprogramming in cancer and the role of inflammation in colorectal carcinogenesis. My early research experiences informed my decision to apply to MD/PhD training programs, and in 2015 I returned to the classroom at the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn.
I joined Dr. Yoseph Barash’s lab in 2018 as a graduate student and am currently being co-mentored by Dr. Louis Ghanem at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I have a broad interest in translational genomics, in particular how molecular information can be used to help deliver the right therapy to the right patient at the right time. My current work focuses on understanding the clinical and biological significance of alternative splicing in inflammatory bowel disease.
Publications
Benci, J. L., Xu, B., Qiu, Y., Wu, T. J., Dada, H., Twyman-Saint Victor, C., Cucolo, L., Lee, D.S.M., Pauken, K.E., Huang, A. C., Gangadhar, .C., Amaravadi, R.K., Schuchter, LM., Feldman, M.D., Ishwaran, H., Vonderheide, R.H., Maity, A., Wherry, E.J., Minn, A.J. Tumor Interferon Signaling Regulates a Multigenic Resistance Program to Immune Checkpoint Blockade. Cell, 167:6, 1540-1554. 2016.
Krock B.L., Eisinger-Matheson T.S., Giannoukos D.N., Shay J.E., Gohil M., Lee, D.S.M., Nakazawa M.S., Sesen J., Skuli N., Simon M.C. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator is an essential regulator of murine hematopoietic stem cell viability. Blood 125(21):3263-3272. 2015.
Majmundar A.J, Lee D.S.M., Skuli N. Mesquita R.C., Kim M.N., Yodh A.G., Nguyen-McCarty M., Li B., Simon M.C. HIF modulation of Wnt signaling regulates skeletal myogenesis in vivo. Development. 142(14) 2405-2412. 2015.
Frohm, B., DeNizio, J.E., Lee, D.S.M., Gentile L., Olsson U., Malm J., Akerfeldt K.S., Linse S. A peptide from human semenogelin I self-assembles into a pH-responsive hydrogel. Soft Matter 11(2):414-421. 2015
Li, B., B. Qiu, D.S.M. Lee, Z.E. Walton, J.D. Ochocki, L. K. Mathew, A. Mancuso, T. P. F. Gade, I. Nissim, B. Keith, and M.C. Simon. Fructose-1, 6-bisphosphatase opposes renal carcinoma progression. Nature 513(7517): 251-255, 2014.