Jered Pasay, M.S., Laboratory Technologist

Jered got his B.S. in Forensic Science from the University of New Haven in 2007. He continued his education at Quinnipiac University where he earned his M.S. in Molecular and Cell Biology in 2009. Jered joined the Center for Biomarker Discovery in 2011 where he assists anyone who needs assistance performing an assay, he also manages the stocking of lab supplies and the maintenance of many of the instruments in the lab.
 

Jianliang Zhou, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Zhou earned his Ph.D. degree in Pharmacognosy from China Pharmaceutical University in 2010. Upon completion of his Ph.D., Dr. Zhou became a research fellow at the Zhejiang Institute for Food and Drug Control. His research interests focus on pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis, metabolomics, and proteomics based on mass spectrometry. Dr. Zhou joined the Center for Biomarker Discovery and Translation as a post-doctoral fellow in June of 2016 and he is currently working on site-specific fucosylation analysis of glycoproteins using lectin affinity followed by mass spectrometry.

Yang Liu, Ph.D., Research Technologist

Dr. Liu received her B.S. from Nankai University, China in 2001 and Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry from Brigham Young University in 2010. Yang joined the Center for Biomarker Discovery in 2015 as a research technologist, working on the sample preparation, operation and maintenance of instruments.

Shuang (Jake) Yang, Ph.D., Research Associate

Dr. Yang received his M.S. from the National University of Singapore in 2003 and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2008. Dr. Yang’s research interests include analytical method development for glycoprotein analysis for biological specimens, tissue glycan imaging, glycan isobaric quantitation, and glycan biosynthesis using chemoenzymatic reactions. Currently, Dr. Yang’s focus is on the analysis of glycan’s and glycoproteins in dyssynchronous heart failure, lung cancer, prostate cancers, and on the development of high-throughput platforms for glycan and protein analysis using microfluidic systems.

Shisheng Sun, Ph.D. Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Sun obtained his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Northwest University of China. He joined The Center for Biomarker Discovery as a post-doctoral fellow in September of 2011. Dr. Sun has been focused on developing mass spectrometry based methods for large-scale protein glycosylation characterization and applying the novel methods into disease development mechanisms and biomarker discovery research since 2005. Dr. Sun is currently working on a new method development for both glycosylation occupancy and site-specific glycosylation analysis, and is involved in the National Cancer Institute’s Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) project for ovarian cancer biomarker discovery.

Allison Chambliss, Ph.D. Clinical Chemistry Fellow

Dr. Chambliss received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2009 and her Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins in 2014. Her doctoral work focused on cell signaling and response to mechanical forces through specific proteins that connect the cell nucleus to the cytoskeleton. Dr. Chambliss also completed a graduate internship in the biofuels industry, where she optimized analytical laboratory methods for assessment of enzyme activity. She entered the Johns Hopkins Department of Pathology's Clinical Chemistry Fellowship program in September 2014. 

Lingquan Deng, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Deng earned his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry under the guidance of Professor Olof Ramstrom at the end of 2011 from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. During his thesis work, Dr. Deng focused on establishing new methodologies in Glycochemistry, including carbohydrate synthesis, glycan biosensor and microarray fabrication, glyconanoparticle surface functionalization, and applying those on selected biological systems for rapid analysis and screening of carbohydrate-protein interactions. This work resulted in 10 peer-reviewed research papers in leading scientific journals and 1 book chapter. After completion of his doctoral studies, Dr. Deng joined Professor Ajit Varki's lab at UC San Diego in Feb. 2012, and started his postdoctoral training in Glycobiology. At UCSD, his research was primarily focused on exploring roles of sialic acid-protein interactions in human diseases, with an emphasis on infectious and blood diseases such as typhoid fever and infective endocarditis. His work at UCSD led to publications in top-tier journals including Cell, PLOS Pathogens, PNAS, and Cell Reports. In June 2015, Dr. Deng joined Professor Hui Zhang's lab in the Center for Biomarker Discovery and Translation as a research fellow to receive further training in Glycoproteomics. His current research interests include platelet-bacterial interactions and related diseases, tumor associated carbohydrate antigens, and sialic acid diversity and biology. 

Shadi Toghi Eshghi, B.Sc., Pre-Doctoral Fellow ( Graduated as Ph.D )

Shadi received her B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Isfahan University of Technology in Iran and moved to Johns Hopkins University to pursue her graduate degree in Biomedical Engineering. She joined the Center for Biomarker Discovery and Translation in June 2011 to study glycomics and glycoproteomics under the supervision of Dr. Hui Zhang. Shadi is interested in developing experimental and computational techniques to better understand how glycosylation is altered during tumorigenesis. Her current research includes development of mass spectrometry imaging techniques for N-glycan imaging as well as software tools for high-throughput site-specific analysis of glycoproteomics mass spectral data.

Li (Lily) Chen, Ph.D., Research Associate

Dr. Chen received her B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from Beijing Information Technology Institute and Shanghai Jiao tong University in 2000 and 2004, respectively, followed by her Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2010. Dr. Chen’s research is focused on developing mathematical algorithms and statistical approaches to analyze a variety of biological data using machine learning and data mining techniques, and integrating multiple biological data sources/types to understand cancer related biological mechanisms for biomarker identification.

Paul Aiyetan, M.D., Post-Doctoral Fellow

The post-genome period promises better understanding of complex diseases, better molecular biomarkers, and a realization of personalized medicine. These aims drive modern biology; including basic biomedical and clinical sciences. Nonetheless, with respect to the massive amount of data daily churned out from high-throughput biomedical experiments, biology seems to plead for novel methods to appropriately understand its observed results. More so, as observed on a global scale of genomes, transcriptomes, proteomes including posttranslational modifications, metabolomes and interactomes, there is no longer a doubt that biological processes are best described within the concept of “multi-functionality”, as opposed to isolated or linear pathways of causality. 

Dr. Aiyetan’s research lies at the intersection of these high content biomedical experiment data on the one end and, mathematics, statistical methods and computation on the other. Dr. Aiyetan seeks to draw on the utility of the later to understand biological processes with respect to normal and diseased states. In addition to optimizing experimental methods and developing analytical tools, Dr. Aiyetan’s research involves integrating and mining experimental outcomes across different data platforms to uncover molecular contributions to interesting phenotypes.

Dr. Aiyetan’s work currently centers on the Clinical Proteomics Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) – the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) multidisciplinary (proteomics, genomics, bioinformatics, experimental design, statistics, cancer biology and oncology) and integrated consortium seeking to identify proteins that result from changes in cancer genomes and their related biological processes. 

Jing Chen, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Chen graduated from University of Washington with a Master’s and Ph.D. degree in Toxicology in 2005 and 2010 respectively. Upon graduation, she joined the department of Pathology at Johns Hopkins University as a postdoctoral fellow. She is especially interested in biomarker discovery and assay development using mass spectroscopy. She has been working on glycoproteomics, conducting biomarker discovery with LC-MS/MS and carrying out validation works with ELISA, IHC and SRM. She has also been working on the automation of sample preparation for proteomic studies.

Christopher Crutchfield, Ph.D., Clinical Chemistry Fellow

Dr. Crutchfield earned his Ph. D. in chemistry with Dr. Joshua Rabinowitz from Princeton University in 2011. His doctoral work focused on applying mass spectrometry based metabolomics to interrogate the metabolic response of S. cerevisiae to perturbations in its nutritional environment. After finishing his Ph.D. he joined Dr. Alfred Yergey at the NIH to apply untargeted mass spectrometry based techniques to the analysis of steroid hormones in patients with endocrine disorders. Since joining the clinical chemistry fellowship program in 2013 Chris has continued to pursue his research interests in mass spectrometry based quantification of small molecules as well as developing computational approaches for the analysis of mass spectrometry data.

Jennifer Dillard, Administrative Coordinator

Jennifer began working at Johns Hopkins University in 1997 as an Administrative/Customer Service Coordinator for the Department of Maintenance and Operations. In 2002 she began working as an Administrative Secretary for the Department of Molecular & Comparative Pathobiology, Retrovirus Laboratory . In 2006 she began working as an Administrative Coordinator for the Department of Pathology, Clinical Chemistry Division.

Xingwang Jia, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Jia received his Ph.D. in Clinical Examination Diagnostics in 2012. Dr. Jia's focus was clinical biochemistry and he performed routine medical laboratory standardization procedures in hospitals in China. His previous research focused on the early diagnosis of cardiovascular disease (CAD) in clinical laboratories. Currently, he is working as a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of Dr. Hui Zhang in the Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Jia is interested in biomarker discovery for prostate cancer and CAD using mass spectrometry approaches.

Yuri Poluektov, Ph.D, Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Poluektov earned his B.S. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007.  He went on to join the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine graduate Immunology program to complete his PhD under the mentorship of Dr. Scheherazade Sadegh-Nasseri in 2014.  The focus of his research included determining the molecular mechanism of the HLA-DO molecule and its role in Class II antigen presentation.  The study involved an in depth work with the MHC Class II system, specifically the generation of the immunodominant epitope.  Following his doctoral studies, Dr. Poluektov joined the Center for Biomarker Discovery and Translation as a postdoctoral fellow to apply his experience in MHC II processing in order to determine new immunodominant peptide and glyco-peptide epitopes.  His current research interests include determining the immunodominant glyco-peptide epitopes of the gp120 HIV protein. 

Abigail Rubin, B.S., Research Technologist

Abby earned her B.S. in Biological Sciences from Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, CO in 2012. She is currently pursuing her M.S. in Biotechnology and Bioinformatics from the University of Maryland. She joined the Center for Biomarker Discovery in July 2013. In addition to assisting her collegues with their research projects, Abby works on assay development and multiplexing for the National Cancer Institutes (NCI) Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) initiative. Other responsibilities include CBD&T website development and maintenance. 

David Sartori, Ph.D., Clinical Chemistry Fellow

David Sartori earned his Bachelors of Science degree in Chemistry from Allegheny College, Meadville, PA in 1993 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Montana State University – Bozeman in 1998. Upon completing his doctoral studies, Dr. Sartori held a post-doctoral research fellow position studying anti-tumor and anti-viral platinum compounds at Virginia Commonwealth University under the guidance of Dr. Nick Farrell. In 2000, he became the manager of the US Army Medical Research Institute for Chemical Warfare’s (USAMRICD) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) facility. In September 2001, Dr. Sartori joined the US Army as an officer. Since that time he has served as the Deputy Commander, Forensic Toxicology Drug Testing Laboratory, Ft. Meade, MD; Deputy Chief, Core Lab and Chief, Central Operations, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, Commander, Forensic Toxicology Drug Testing Laboratory, Tripler Army Medical Center, HI; and, Deputy Chief, Science Program Analysis and Integration Office, USAMRICD, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD. He started the Clinical Chemistry Fellowship program at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in July 2013.

Bai Zhang, Ph.D. Research Associate

Dr. Zhang received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, China in 2004 and 2006, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2011. Dr. Zhang joined the Center for Biomarker Discovery and Translation as a Research Associate in 2011. His research interests include machine learning, bioinformatics and computational biology, with an emphasis on their applications in biomedical research. Currently, his research is mainly focused on bioinformatics and statistical analysis for the National Cancer Institute's Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC).

Jian-Ying Zhou, Ph.D., Research Associate

Dr. Zhou received his Ph.D from Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Science in 2005. After graduation he joined Dr. Junming Peng’s lab at Emory University as a postdoctoral fellow, and then he moved to Dr. Richard D. Smith’s lab at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in 2008 as a postdoctoral research associate. In 2012, he joined in Department of Pathology at Johns Hopkins University as a research associate. Dr. Zhou has been working on proteomics and biomarker discovery for the past 8 years.  He has been involved in several national wide large scale biomarker discovery projects for different diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, diabetes, and cancer. He has developed new proteomic techniques to identify and quantify proteins and protein modifications involved in disease development.  He is currently focused on the National Cancer Institute’s Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) project to identify protein and protein modification candidates associated with ovarian cancer and breast cancer. His research interests include the quantitative proteomics and crosstalk between multiple posttranslational modifications.