Faculty Collaborators
We work closely with many faculty members at Washington University and around the world to advance research. Ongoing collaborators include:
Dr. Cashen serves as the clinical PI of memory-like NK cell clinical trial adoptive immunotherapy trials from within our clinical lymphoma group. She has extensive experience in lymphoma, hematopoietic cell transplantation, and cellular therapy (including CAR T cells) for hematologic malignancies.
Dr. Bartlett is a long-standing collaborator on all lymphoma research projects. She is vice-chair of the Alliance lymphoma committee and working in lymphoma clinical trial development and science for >20 years and an international expert on lymphoma treatment and clinical trials.
Obi Griffith, PhD and Malachi Griffith, PhD
We have a long-standing and active collaboration for lymphoma sequencing with the Griffith Lab. These include discovery sequencing in follicular lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma, development of a lymphoma custom capture panel, neo-epitope identification and prediction, and evaluation of mutation correlations with clinical outcomes.
Mentored Faculty
Felicia Gomez, PhD (fgomez@genome.wustl.edu)
Felicia is an Instructor in Medicine, and works on a collaborative project focused on lymphoma genomics in concert with the Obi and Malachi Griffith laboratories. She is currently studying recurrent mutations in follicular and Hodgkin lymphoma and their correlation with clinical outcomes.
Melissa Berrien-Elliott, PhD (melissa.berrien@wustl.edu)
Melissa is an Instructor in Medicine, working in the Fehniger lab. Melissa’s research projects include understanding how microRNAs regulate NK cell development and effector functions; mechanisms of memory-like NK cell differentiation, and correlative science pertaining to memory-like NK cell adoptive immunotherapy and NK cell checkpoints. She utilizes mass cytometry to inform ongoing translational studies monitoring NK cells in vivo in patients. When Melissa is not busy in the lab, she enjoys cooking, reading, and traveling. Find her on twitter @BerrienElliott
Jennifer Foltz, PhD (jennifer.a.foltz@wustl.edu)
Jennifer joined the Fehniger Lab in November 2018! She is performing various high-dimensional analyses on memory-like NK cells. She is co-mentored by Dr. Allegra Petti.
David Russler-Germain, MD, PhD (germaind@wustl.edu)
David did his undergraduate at Stanford University. He was trained here at Washington University School of Medicine for his MD, PhD. Lymphoma is David’s clinical interest, and in the lab he is interested in understanding and developing syngeneic mouse models of follicular lymphoma. He also serves as the Fellow Recruitment Leader for the Hematology-Oncology Fellowship Program. Find him on twitter @dgermain21
Alice Zhou, MD, PhD (alice.y.zhou@wustl.edu)
Alice did her medical and graduate training at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Vanderbilt School of Medicine. She is developing various NK cell therapy approaches to target multiple myeloma and melanoma. In her free time, Alice enjoys cooking, hiking and painting.
Trainees
Post-Docs
Wilbur Song, MD, PhD (songwilbur@wustl.edu)
Emily Phillips, MD (pemily@wustl.edu)
Pamela Wong, PhD (wongp@wustl.edu)
Pamela completed her PhD in Immunology in the Fehniger lab in October 2023. She is working on various aspects of NK cell biology, that span regulation of NK cell development and survival. She is using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing on human NK cells and utilizing mouse models to study the role of different transcription factors in mature NK cells. She enjoys coming up with Fehniger lab-related puns. Find her on Twitter @NKtraineePamela!
Graduate Students
Celia Cubitt (celia.cubitt@wustl.edu) MD/PhD Candidate (Immunology)
Celia is an MSTP student now back in the clinical years of her training. She defended her PhD in August, 2023. She is working on various translational human NK cell projects. Celia is supported by the NIH NIAID F30 fellowship. In her free time, she enjoys triathlons, soccer, camping, and various local breweries. She recently completed a half-ironman! Find her on twitter @CeliaCubitt.
////////////////////////////////////
Jennifer Tran (jennifer.tran@wustl.edu) PhD Candidate (Immunology)
Jenn is a fourth year Immunology PhD student in the DBBS program. Jenn is studying the mechanism of memory-like NK cells. She is part of the Lucille P. Markey Special Emphasis Pathway in Human Pathobiology and is supported by the NIH NIGMS F31 Fellowship. Jenn loves eating! Find her on twitter @Jenn__Tran
Lyra Morina (l.morina@wustl.edu) MD/PhD Student (Immunology)
Lyra is a first year PhD student in the DBBS Immunology program. She is working on engineering human CAR-Memory-like NK cells against Acute Myeloid Leukemia and Follicular Lymphoma. She advocates for the physician-scientist pathway through organizing Educational Workshops for the MSTP ACCESS Summer Internship, mentoring MD-PhD applicants, and sharing the day-to-day life of MSTP training on Instagram @mdeephdee. She loves yoga, running, spin classes, and traveling. Find her on twitter: @lyra_morina
Sadia Afrin (a.sadia@wustl.edu) PhD Candidate (Immunology)
Sadia is a second year PhD student in the DBBS Immunology program. She is working on engineering human CAR-Memory-like NK cells against Multiple Myeloma.
Undergraduate Students
Kimberly Hwang (hkimberly@wustl.edu)
Allie Burdi (a.burdi@wustl.edu)
Allie is a fourth-year undergraduate student at WashU, majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in Chinese. She joined the Fehniger lab in Fall 2022. Her work in the lab uses a high-throughput screening assay to select candidate CAR constructs for CAR-NK development. In her free time, she enjoys running and painting!
Staff
Timothy Schappe (tschappe@wustl.edu)
Tim has worked in the Fehniger Lab for over 9 years as lab manager and senior technician. He has more than 15 years of research expertise in cell biology, mouse husbandry, flow and mass cytometry, and GMP-based cellular therapy. Tim is the general contact for all lab questions and the best lab manager ever.
Michelle Becker-Hapak (mbecker-hapak@wustl.edu)
Michelle has substantial experience in cell biology, immunology, and GMP-based cellular therapy. She leads the NK cell production and correlative science on clinical trials in the Fehniger Lab. In addition, she is working on NK cell responses to solid tumors, and correlative T cell studies in follicular lymphoma. Outside the lab, Michelle loves hiking and traveling! She also shares tomato seedlings from her garden with the lab 😀
Lynne Marsala (marsalal@wustl.edu)
Lynne has extensive experience in cellular and molecular biology and whole animal imaging using bioluminescence (BLI). She is working on many projects evaluating the role of specific microRNAs and genes in NK cell development and function. When she is not in lab, she judges college gymnastics and competes in Iron Man triathlons!
Mark Foster (markfoster@wustl.edu)
Mark has years of experience in molecular biology and biochemistry, and recently returned to the laboratory research full time. He contributes to many studies that utilize mass cytometry to better understand the immune response to cancer and as correlative immunomonitoring on clinical trials. When he is not in lab, he enjoys spending time with his family, especially on the golf course.
Joseph Rueve (jrueve@wustl.edu)
Sushanth Pureti (pureti@wustl.edu)
