Principal Investigator
ra6u@virginia.edu

Roger Abounader is a molecular, cellular and translational neuro-oncology researcher. He completed his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University in Canada. He was appointed tenure-track assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University before being recruited by the University of Virginia. He is currently a tenured full professor in the departments of Microbiology, Immunology & Cancer Biology and Neurology. He is also the Arthur and Margaret Ebbert Endowed Chair of Medical Science and serves as Assistant Director at the University of Virginia Cancer Center.

Assistant Professor
yz5h@virginia.edu

Ying Zhang earned her PhD in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology from University of Hull, UK. She served as a postdoctoral fellow at NIH NIDCR in 2005. She joined University of Virginia as a Research Scientist and then as a Research Assistant Professor from 2008 to present. She studies the mechanistic role of Receptor Tyrosine Kinases (RTKs), p53, T-type calcium channel and non-coding RNAs. She also conducts translational research on experimental therapeutics in glioblastoma (GBM). Ying also serves as the lab manager for the Abounader Lab.

Research Scientist
ss7st@virginia.edu

Shekhar received his PhD from Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, West Bengal, India. During his PhD he worked on the role of Nonmuscle Myosin II-C2 in neuritogenesis. He moved to University of Virginia, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, to pursue his postdoctoral training in 2015. He joined the lab in July 2021 as a Research Scientist. Shekhar is currently working on CRISPR/Cas9 screening on glioblastoma in combination with different drugs to find the novel therapeutics for inhibiting glioblastoma initiation and progression.

Graduate Research Assistant
mkg7x@virginia.edu

Myron Gibert Jr is from Fort Washington, MD. He received a B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and a minor in Leadership Studies from Hampton University and a M.S. in Life and Physical Sciences from the University of Virginia. He joined the lab in 2017 as a graduate research assistant, and currently works on the project concerning transcribed ultra-conserved regions in GBM. In addition to his research, Myron performs some bioinformatics and data analysis for the lab.

Graduate Research Assistant
cjd7ua@virginia.edu

Collin received a B.S. in Biochemistry from Rowan University. After graduation he worked as a microbiologist at a pharmaceutical company performing method development on new therapeutics. After working a few years, he went back to school where he received a M.S. in Biotechnology with a concentration in Molecular Targets and Drug Discovery Technologies from Johns Hopkins University. Following graduation, he worked under the guidance of Dr. Rekha Panchal and Dr. Veronica Soloveva at United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease performing high throughput drug screening and assay development. Collin joined the lab in 2018 as a graduate student and currently works assessing the roles and therapeutic targeting of T-type calcium channels in GBM.

Kadie Hudson
Graduate Research Assistant
rce3ka@virginia.edu

Originally from Dublin, VA, Kadie Hudson completed her B.S. in Genetics from Clemson University in the spring of 2020. During her undergraduate studies she researched the biochemistry of spider silk self-assembly for biomaterials implications. After completing her B.S., Kadie worked at ThermoFisher Scientific as a Quality Chemist I where she conducted chemical testing on small molecule pharmaceuticals. Kadie joined the Abounader Lab in 2022 as a graduate student and is currently investigating the roles of various ncRNAs in glioblastoma and medulloblastoma.