Principal Investigator:
Anisa Shaker is physician-scientist with a lab investigating mechanisms of esophageal injury, repair, and inflammation in benign and malignant states. Clinically she sees patients with GERD, eosinophilic esophagitis, and swallowing and esophageal motility disorders. She earned her medical degree from Medical College of Wisconsin, followed by residency at Brown University-Rhode Island Hospital, and a Gastroenterology Fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine-Barnes Jewish Hospital. https://keck.usc.edu/faculty-search/anisa-shaker/
Research Laboratory Technician II: Joshua Castle, BS. A graduate of UCSB with a degree in Cell and Developmental Biology, Joshua is brings his technical expertise to the lab. He is particularly interested in tissue and disease modeling using organoids.
Research Associate: Atousa Khalatbari, MD, MS. A graduate of Tehran University of Medical Science, Atousa brings her expertise in molecular biology to the lab. She is particularly interested in the field of Immunopharmacology and the designing/testing of novel anti-inflammatory drugs.
Research Associate: Tao Li, PhD. Tao has over 10 years of experience in molecular biology research. The research fields that he was involved in included host-fungus, bacterium-bacteriophage and brain-gut interactions. His expertise in high throughput sequencing and application of statistical and computational methods helps to extend the knowledge in these fields.
Research Coordinator I: A graduate of UCSD with a degree in Human Biology, Diana brings her experience in working with clinical research to the lab, including consenting patients to provide biopsies for downstream research applications, as well as statistical analysis of clinical data.
Outside collaborators:
- Ibrahim Abboud, BS
- Chloe Tom, MD
- Ling Shao, MD
Prior members:
- Madhura Patankar, PhD
- Liping Hu, MS
- Chunying Zhang, MD
- Chao Niu, PhD
- Matthew Gargus, BS