Faculty

Daphne Avgousti, Ph.D.

Publications
Biography: Dr. Daphne Avgousti is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology and also a member of the Cancer Epigenetics group at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. She completed her undergraduate degree in biochemistry at Tufts University in 2006 and her PhD in biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University in 2012 where...
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Defne Bayik, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology
Publications
Biography: Dr. Defne Bayik is a cancer immunologist focused on uncovering host regulatory pathways as targets for brain tumor immunotherapy. She completed her undergraduate degree in the Bilkent University Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and received her Ph.D. in 2016 through the National Institutes of Health-Bilkent University Graduate Partnership Program. Her dissertation...
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John L. Bixby, Ph.D.

Professor of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology
Publications
Biography: Dr. John L. Bixby received his PhD from Caltech in 1980, and did postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He joined the faculty at UCSF in 1985 and moved to the University of Miami in 1988. He is Professor of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology and Neurological Surgery at the Miller School of Medicine...
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Peter Buchwald, Ph.D.

Professor
Publications
Biography: Dr. Buchwald obtained a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics (Computer-Aided Drug Design) from the University of Florida in 1997 under the mentorship of Dr. Nicholas Bodor. Following his graduation, he worked both in industrial (IVAX Corp. and Teva Pharmaceuticals Ltd) and academic settings including the University of Miami. He published >130 publications in peer-reviewed journals covering...
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Mariana Cooke, M.D., Ph.D., MTR

Assistant Professor
Publications
Biography: As a physician-scientist, my research centers on understanding the complexities of deregulated signaling networks that drive tumor development, cancer progression, and metastasis. My studies emphasize the role of disrupted signal transduction pathways, including deregulated membrane receptors such as tyrosine kinases and G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), as well as...
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Gennaro D’Urso, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology
Clinical Profile
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Yangbo Feng, Ph.D.

Associate Director of Medicinal Chemistry
Publications
Biography: Dr. Feng is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, and the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He is a medicinal chemist with extensive research experience in both academic and industry settings. Dr. Feng has been working on small molecule drug discovery and preclinical...
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Daniel G. Isom, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology
Clinical Profile | Publications
Biography: Dr. Isom was born and raised in the Cleveland area. A first-generation college graduate and academic, he spent two years at the Cleveland Institute of Art before earning degrees in biochemistry and chemistry from Case Western Reserve University. He earned his PhD in molecular biophysics from Johns Hopkins University and completed postdoctoral training at Duke University...
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Rosemeire Kanashiro-Takeuchi, Ph.D.

Research Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology

Biography: Dr. Rosemeire Kanashiro-Takeuchi earned her DVM from Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), Brazil, and completed her Master's and Ph.D. in Pharmacology (Physiology emphasis) at Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), Brazil. During her graduate training, she investigated the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying cardiac remodeling and dysfunction following...
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Marcelo G. Kazanietz, Ph.D.

Professor
Publications
Biography: Dr. Kazanietz is a cancer researcher and pharmacologist focusing on signal transduction mechanisms in tumorigenesis and metastasis. He completed his postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute (NCI, NIH). Before joining the University of Miami, Dr. Kazanietz was a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where he served as...
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Kiran Kurmi, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology
Publications
Biography: Dr. Kiran Kurmi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. He earned his Ph.D. from the Mayo Clinic in 2018 and completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School in 2024. His research primarily focuses on cancer metabolism, with a particular emphasis on mitochondrial...
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Sandra K. Lemmon, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus
Clinical Profile | Publications
Biography: Degrees
B.A. University of Rochester (1973)
Ph.D. Washington University (1982)

Positions
Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Mellon University (1983-1985)
Research Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University (1985-1988)
Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University (1988-1996)
Associate Professor (tenure), Case Western Reserve University (1996-2003)
Associate Professor (tenure),...
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Zhipeng Meng, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Publications
Biography: Zhipeng Meng, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and a member of the Tumor Biology Program at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Dr. Meng’s laboratory investigates how cells sense and adapt to biochemical, biomechanical, and metabolic changes in the tissue microenvironment,...
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Stephan C. Schürer, Ph.D.

Professor of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology
Publications
Biography: Dr. Schürer studied chemistry at Humboldt University of Berlin and University of California Berkeley. Following his PhD from the Technical University Berlin, he built and directed the international operations to the develop life science information technology and scientific content products at Libraria and Eidogen-Sertanty Inc, two technology startups in San Jose California...
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Vladlen Z. Slepak, Ph.D.

Professor of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology
Publications
Biography: Dr. Vladen ("Vlad") Slepak studied Biology at the Moscow State University, USSR and graduated with M.S. in 1983; he received his Ph.D. at the Shemyakin Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in Moscow in 1988. In 1990, he joined the research group of Dr. Melvin Simon at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA as a postdoctoral fellow. In 1995, he established his...
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Danuta Szczesna-Cordary, Ph.D.

Professor of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology

Biography: Dr. Szczesna-Cordary received her Master of Science degree in Biophysical Chemistry from the University of Warsaw in Poland. In 1983, she initiated her research on skeletal muscle contraction and myosin regulatory light chain phosphorylation under the tutelage of Prof. Irena Kakol at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw....
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Fulvia Verde, Ph.D.

Professor of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology
Clinical Profile
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Fangliang Zhang, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Publications
Biography: Bachelor of Science, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, China,1999
PhD in Biochemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 2005
Postdoc, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 2005-2011
Assistant Professor, University of Miami, Miami, FL, 2011-2019
Associate Professor, University of Miami, Mimia, FL, 2019-current
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