Faculty

Daphne Avgousti, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology
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...
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Peter Buchwald, Ph.D.

Associate 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...
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Kerry Burnstein, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair, Department of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology

Biography: Kerry L. Burnstein, Ph.D., received her B.A. in biology (1981) from Wesleyan University, Middletown Connecticut and a Ph.D. in genetics (1986) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She pursued post-doctoral training with Dr. John Cidlowski at UNC-CH studying the regulation of steroid hormone receptors. In 1991, Dr. Burnstein joined the faculty at the University...
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Mariana Cooke, MD PhD

Principal Investigator
Publications
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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 Isom, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology
Clinical Profile | Publications
Biography: Dr. Isom was born and raised in the Cleveland area. He is a first generation college graduate and academic. After spending two years at the Cleveland Institute of Art, he earned degrees in Biochemistry and Chemistry from Case Western Reserve University. He then went on to earn a PhD in Molecular Biophysics from Johns Hopkins University followed by postdocs at both Duke...
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Rosemiere Kanashiro-Takeuchi, Ph.D.

Research Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology

Biography: Dr. Kanashiro-Takeuchi received her DVM degree from Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP-Brazil) and completed her graduate studies (Masters and Ph.D.) in Pharmacology (Emphasis in Physiology) from Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo (UNIFESP-Brazil) where she got training in many aspects of the cardiovascular investigation employing both in vitro and...
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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

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...
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Sandra K. Lemmon, Ph.D.

Professor of Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology
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...
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Zhipeng Meng, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Publications
Biography: Dr. Zhipeng Meng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and an affiliated member of the Tumor Biology Program at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. With a focus on understanding the molecular mechanisms controlling tissue regeneration, fibrosis, and carcinogenesis,...
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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...
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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...
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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.

Associate 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,...
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