Our Research Team
Dr. Dorothy Sipkins, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Dorothy Sipkins received a B.A.S. in Biology and Classics, as well as an M.D. and Ph.D from Stanford University. She subsequently did an internship and internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by an oncology fellowship at MGH/The Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She came to the University of Chicago to start her lab as an assistant professor.
Brendan Horton
Brendan Horton matriculated into the University of Chicago's Ph.D. program in Cancer Biology in the Fall of 2009 after graduating from Boston University with a B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He joined the Sipkins lab in the fall 2010 as Dr. Sipkins' first graduate student. Brendan is currently studying the interactions between leukemia cells and the bone marrow microenvironment that take place during leukemia progression. Especially interesting is the question of whether the niches in the bone marrow that control benign cell proliferation and dormancy during hematopoiesis play similar roles during leukemic growth. Additionally, Brendan is working with Maya to study the role that different chemokine receptors and cell adhesion molecules have in the aberrant homing of the hematopoietic stem cells of patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms. These studies may also reveal novel information about how normal hematopoietic stem cells traffic to different hematopoietic sites in the body.
Maya Zafrir
Maya Zafrir is a research technician and the lab manager of the Sipkins Lab. She is from the Chicago area and graduated from DePaul University in 2010 with a B.S. in the biological sciences, with a concentration in cellular and molecular biology. In addition to her duties as the lab manager and her own experiments, Maya aids others in the lab with their research. Maya is currently researching the behavior of CD34+ stem cells in myeloproliferative neoplasms, particularly polycythemia vera (PV). These hematological malignancies are of particular interest to this lab, as they can often evolve into a more serious disease--acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The lab's research on PV focuses on the early bone marrow homing of CD34+ stem cells isolated from PV patients, visualized in vivo in mice with fluorescent confocal microscopy. Together with Brendan, our resident grad student, Maya is also researching the role of CXCR4 and c-kit in the early homing of CD34+ cells in PV.
Andrea Pontier, M.S.
Andrea Pontier is a part-time research technician and "lab manager emeritus" of the Sipkins lab. She worked full-time as the lab manager from May 2007-March 2009 and returned on a part-time basis in May 2010. Andrea's main duties are to aid Maya in some of the administrative functions of the lab manager and to help other lab members with experiments.
Renee Cheng
Renee Cheng is a third year undergraduate research assistant, majoring in the biological sciences. She helps Dr. Burness with her research on the micro-metastasis of breast cancer to the bone. Her primary role is to assess the expression of different chemokine receptors on breast cancer cells through various flow cytometry experiments. She is also investigating the integrins involved in homing to the bone marrow niche through adhesion assays.
Ayelet Sivan
Ayelet Sivan received a BA in philosophy from Tel Aviv University and is currently a medical student at TAU on leave for doctoral studies abroad. Following a year of research at the Weizmann Institute Ayelet joined the University of Chicago's Committee on Cancer Biology PhD program and the Sipkins lab in April 2012. She is studying the interaction between mesenchymal stem cells and the damaged stromal microenvironment, and its effect on hematopoiesis. In addition, she is interested in studying the role of bone marrow niches in breast cancer chemoresistance.
Dr. Trevor Price, Ph.D.
Dr. Trevor Price, who originally hails from the Rep. of Ireland, joined the Sipkins lab in November 2012. Trevor began his studies at Trinity College Dublin where he graduated with a B.A in Biochemistry and Immunology in 2007. After a year working in drug development for Codex Discoveries L.td, Trevor subsequently undertook a Ph.D in Biochemistry at Trinity, studying mechanisms of chemotherapeutic resistance in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma. At the University of Chicago, Trevor is continuing investigations into crosstalk between leukemia-initiating cells and the bone marrow microenvironment. Using in vivo models of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL) the project is examining specific molecular cues of the extracellular-matrix which potentially influence leukemic cell dormancy, chemotherapeutic resistance and ultimately disease relapse in a clinical setting.
Former Members
Dr. Monika Burness, M.D. has moved on to the position of Clinical Lecturer in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Ali Ekrem Yesilkanal matriculated into the University of Chicago's Committee on Cancer Biology in September 2012.
Dr. Ben Boyerinas, Ph.D., has moved on to a postdoctoral position at the National Cancer Institute.