I am Dr. Tianxia (Tina) Li, lab director of HICCC Precision Cancer Medicine, working closely with Dr. Adam Bass. I was trained as neuroscientist and completely converted to gastric cancer drug hunter six years ago. In the United States, gastric cancer remains one of the deadliest cancer with A combined five-year-survival rate of only 70%. In HICCC Precision Cancer Medicine center, we combined the power of next-gen cancer genetics and 3D tumor organoids model to elucidate the oncogenic mechanism of gastric cancer. Based on these, we are looking further to screen thousands of existing drugs and clinical phase drug combo to find the precision treatment strategy that could offer optimal clinical outcomes for each individual patient. At HICCC, we look forward to collaborate with academic as well as industry to push the frontier of gastric cancer treatment forward. 

When I am not at work, I love traveling with family, host parties with friends, especially cooking traditional Asian food for the family. I am a proud Mom of two inquisitive boys (six and four) who are obsessed about macrophage phagocytosis and dinosaur classification.

Mariam is from Dallas Texas where she completed her MD, PhD in lung cancer cell biology. She moved to New York in 2017 for internal medicine training at NYU & Bellevue hospitals before joining Columbia for hematology oncology fellowship. She is focusing on preclinical testing of novel therapies to target KRAS amplification and adaptative resistance in gastric cancer.

Ryan Moy is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and gastrointestinal oncologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. After obtaining his undergraduate degree from Yale University, Ryan pursued MD/PhD training at the University of Pennsylvania and internal medicine residency at Weill Cornell. Ryan then completed medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and performed post-doctoral studies with Dr. Sohail Tavazoie at The Rockefeller University, investigating mechanisms driving liver metastasis in colorectal cancer. In addition to leading clinical trials testing novel therapeutics for patients with GI cancers and other malignancies, Ryan is focused on translational research in gastroesophageal cancer.

Feifei Zhang received her Ph.D. degree from Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Now she is exploring the function of fusion gene in diffuse gastric cancer and its implication in improved therapies. The experience in the molecular mechanism of metabolism helps her understand more about the development of cancer development.

My research in Dr. Bass lab is focusing on interrogating the interaction of somatic genomic alterations and immune microenvironment in gastric and esophageal cancers, using in vivo/in vitro functional genomic tools as well as murine models and human tissues, to perform in vivo studies evaluating how frontline chemo/targeted therapies can reshape/remodel tumor microenvironment on-treatment, and exploring the optimal targets for combination therapy.   

I am interested in intersection of genomic alteration of cancer cells and chronic inflammation in tumor microenvironment.

I would like to develop new mouse modeling systems and also employ in vivo screening approach to tackle this issue.

Research Technician B

I earned my master’s degree in biotechnology from New York University. I am very passionate to learning new technologies and innovative strategies to treat diseases, especially cancer. My goal is to contribute to the discoveries that could incorporate the research in the real time. I am fortunate to learn from the best team working on the cutting-edge technologies of precision medicine in the field of GI cancer.

I’m Varun, and I am a Phd student in the Genetics and Development program at CUMC. In the Bass lab, I am studying how gastric cells evolve over time and become oncogenic. Together with my co mentor, Dr. Chao Lu, I hope to elucidate the epigenome, transcriptome, and genome architecture of normal cells as they transform to tumor cells. Previously, I graduated from Rutgers University where I majored in Cell Biology and Neuroscience. Afterwards, I worked in the labs of Drs. Devraj Basu and Anil Rustgi in the Departments of Otorhinolaryngology and Gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania studying head and neck, esophageal, and pancreatic cancers.