SOM PSTP Trainees
Meet the SOM PSTP trainees!
2024 Cohort
Brooke Matson, MD, PhD (Resident / Fellowship Level) – Department of Medicine
Matson’s research will focus on the pathophysiology of diabetes and obesity, specifically understanding the relationship of plasma glucose, incretin hormones and brain glucose to better design preventions and treatments.
Jeremy Meier, MD, PhD (Faculty Level) – Department of Medicine
Meier is a hematologist working on extracellular signals in the tumor microenvironment regulate the differentiation and function of immune cells.
Brittany Raffa, MD (Faculty Level) – Department of Pediatrics
Raffa is an assistant professor of general pediatrics and adolescent medicine and her research serves to inform policy that will improve population health outcomes.
Shivani Sud, MD (Faculty Level) – Department of Radiation Oncology
Sud is an assistant professor in Radiation Oncology with a research focus on personalized cancer therapy using biomarkers and other interventions to mitigate toxicity from cancer-directed therapies.
2023 Cohort
Jose Martinez, MD, PhD (Resident / Fellowship Level) – Department of Medicine
Martinez is a hematologist whose work combines RNA biology and bioinformatics to identify how different roles of spliceosome protein U2AF1 affect acute myelogenous leukemia progression.
Justin Sperlazza, MD, PhD (Resident / Fellowship Level) – Department of Pediatrics
Sperlazza is a pediatric oncologist working on the understanding how chromatin directed therapeutics can influence tumor susceptibility to immunotherapy, particularly CAR-T therapy, in Ewing’s Sarcoma.
Lauren Frazer, MD, PhD (Faculty Level) – Department of Pediatrics
Frazer has a research program focused on understanding the immune signaling pathway dysregulation that leads to necrotizing enterocolitis in infants.
Dominique Higgins, MD, PhD (Faculty Level) – Department of Neurosurgery
Higgins’ research interests are centered on understanding the impact of the NFkappaB signaling pathway on chemotherapy and immunotherapy based treatments of malignant brain tumors such as glioblastoma.
Klara Klein, MD, PhD (Faculty Level) – Department of Medicine
Klein is focused on studying whether GLP1 receptor antagonists, which are have been shown to have a multitude of beneficial effects in the treatment of diabetes, have safety and efficacy in treating Diabetes Mellitus individuals with kidney disease who are on hemodialysis.
2022 Cohort
Simon Gray, MD, PhD (Resident / Fellowship Level) – Department of Medicine
Gray will use his mouse models of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that remit and relapse with standard IBD therapies to test whether restoring a subset of normal gut bacteria can lead to remission.
Jeremy Meier, MD, PhD (Resident / Fellowship Level) – Department of Medicine
Meier’s project will understand how intracellular signaling molecule STING induces metabolic changes in T cells driving the development of T memory stem cells with increased efficacy against solid tumors.
Erica Brenner, MD, MSCR (Faculty Level) – Department of Pediatrics
Brenner is focused on understanding the safety and impact of estrogen-containing contraceptive products in adolescent and adult young women with inflammatory bowel disease.
Erin Steinbach, MD, PhD (Faculty Level) – Department of Medicine
Steinbach will build on her previous SOM PSTP research to understand how leakiness of the gastrointestinal tract contributes to the development of peanut allergies.
2021 Cohort
Klara Klein, MD, PhD (Resident/Fellowship Level) – Department of Medicine
Supported research focuses on using a novel glucokinase activator to prevent diabetic ketoacidosis in patients with Type 1 Diabetes and to identify additional therapeutic targets to prevent diabetic ketoacidosis.
Shetal Patel, MD, PhD (Faculty Level) – Department of Medicine
Patel will determine if targeting metabolic pathways in immune cells can enhance immunotherapeutic approaches to lung cancer therapy.
Clio Rubinos, MD (Faculty Level) – Department of Neurology
Rubinos’ PSTP project focuses on the role of neuroinflammation resulting from traumatic brain injury in the development of posttraumatic epilepsy.
Miriam Sklerov, MD, MS (Faculty Level) – Department of Neurology
Sklerov will study whether transcranial magnetic stimulation can be used to treat autonomic dysfunction and other non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Philip Spanheimer, MD (Faculty Level) – Department of Surgery
Supported work is to identify mechanisms of resistance to breast cancer therapy and patients at risk for treatment failure, as well as to discover new therapeutic targets.
Matthew Vogt, MD, PhD (Faculty Level) – Department of Pediatrics
Vogt is interested in what drives rare cases of severe pathogenesis seen in some children infected with common viruses including respiratory syncytial virus and enterovirus D68.
2020 Cohort
Alena Markmann, MS, MD, PhD (Resident / Fellow Level) – Department of Medicine
Markmann will focus on defining the molecular properties of subsets of protective human antibodies that develop after Zika virus infection to identify viral targets to improve vaccine and therapeutic antibody design.
Erin Steinbach, MD, PhD (Resident / Fellow Level) – Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics
As a PSTP Fellow, Steinbach will examine how peanut proteins and the intestinal epithelium interact in normal health and peanut allergy to identify new targeted therapies for preventing severe peanut allergic reactions.
Tessa Andermann, MD, MPH (Faculty Level) – Department of Medicine
Andermann will identify and track antimicrobial resistance in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to understand how resistance gene dynamics in the gut influence the risk of infection with multidrug-resistant organisms.
Peyton Thompson, MD, MSCR (Faculty Level) – Department of Pediatrics
Thompson will enhance knowledge of childhood Hepatitis B in Africa, identify hotspots of disease, and model spatially targeted vaccination strategies to avert future cases in African children.