Esma Yolcu, PhD
Professor
Bio
Dr. Yolcu has significant interest in using hematopoietic stem cells as a powerful scheme for immunomodulation with main focus on the treatment of autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, and allograft rejection as well as bone marrow failure syndrome and hematological malignancies. Imperative to these efforts is a platform technology, ProtEx™, co-pioneered by Dr. Yolcu that allows for; i) the generation of novel immune ligands having robust immune-stimulatory or suppressive functions, and ii) the transient display of these ligands, individually or in combination, on biological and non-biological surfaces for localized immunomodulation. The platform technology has been patent-protected worldwide.
Rene Cortese, PhD
Research Assistant Professor
Bio
Rene Cortese, PhD, studies epigenetics of complex diseases to detect and understand how complex diseases develop, progress, are inherited, and can be treated. His current research focuses on the functional study of epigenetic phenomena in genome regulation and the epigenetic mechanisms involved in children's and women's health.
Kristin Sohl, MD
Associate Professor
Bio
Dr. Sohl is a pediatrician with extensive experience in medical diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of children with a concern of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. She is an expert in quality and process improvement for comprehensive autism diagnostic and longitudinal services.
She is the site principal investigator for the Autism Intervention Research for Physical Health/Autism Treatment Network (AIRP/ATN) and the founder of ECHO Autism, an innovative framework to increase community capacity to care for children with autism and other developmental/behavioral concerns. Her team has established partnerships with health care entities in more than 15 states and five countries. Her research focus is system change to improve health care and services for individuals with autism through understanding their medical conditions.
Jorge Gomez-Gutierrez, PhD
Research Associate Professor
Bio
The Gomez-Gutierrez Laboratory is primarily interested in microbial-based cancer therapy. We focus on investigating how virus- and bacteria-based therapies can be used to stop tumorigenesis and induce oncolysis and/or immune responses in cancers when conventional therapy is inadequate. Two microorganisms are being studied: the first is a conditionally replicating adenovirus (CRAd) also known as oncolytic adenovirus (OAd); the second is the lactic acid bacteria Lactococcus lactis (L. lactis), which is generally regarded as a safe (GRAS) organism and is used in dairy industry to make cheese and yogurt. The former study was funded with an NIH/NCI exploratory/developmental grant R21CA210202 and currently supported by Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
