SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS

Rutgers Innovation Awards- Early Career Innovator Award, Rutgers, 2024

Faculty of the Year Award, Rutgers NJMS, 2024

HealthXpress Award, Rutgers, 2023

New Investigator Award from Rutgers CINJ, 2023

Lustgarten Foundation-AACR Pancreatic Cancer Career Development Award, 2022

Thomas H. and Mayme P. Scott Fellowship in Cancer Research, 2021

NIH-NCI K22 Career Transition Award, 2020

Harold C. and Mary L. Dailey Endowment Fellowship, 2020

Research Associate and Lab Manager

Dr. Deng earned his Ph.D. degree at South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2010. He is an expert in microbial engineering, and has established a solid research background in multiple biological disciplines including microbiology, genetics, molecular biology and biochemistry during his postdoc training. He has 5 first-author publications in the past 5 years and he is the co-inventor of 4 patents and the co-author of over 30 papers.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Habeeb earned her Ph.D from CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology. Her graduate work focused on understanding the role of apoptosis and autophagy in regulating cancer cell viability and determining the therapeutic potential of dual induction of apoptosis and autophagy in pancreatic cancer.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Yuemeng earned her PhD in clinical veterinary medicine from Northwest A&F University in China in 2023. Her graduate work focused on the abnormal reprogramming in chromatin accessibility and epigenomic of animal cloned embryos in early development.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Parichehr earned her PhD from the National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (NIGEB), Iran. During her time at NIGEB, she focused on functionalizing a recently discovered lncRNA, LINK-A, in non-small cell lung cancer. Simultaneously, she was developing a graphene oxide-based gene delivery system for potential use in cancer gene therapy. Her unwavering passion to combat cancer drives her career endeavors.

Graduate Student

Ting-yu is a first-year PhD student in the biomedical science program (MBGC track). She came from Taiwan and received a MS degree in Biotechnology from Indiana University Bloomington. Her pervious research focused on the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing in K. pneumoniae and the susceptibility testing in carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae.

Masters Student

Sahil is a second-year graduate student working towards his Masters in Biomedical Science. He previously graduated from the City College of New York with a B.S. in Biology. He is currently exploring his research interests in PDAC.

Masters Student

MingGao is a second-year graduate student working towards his Masters in Biomedical Science. He previously graduated from Union College of Schenectady N.Y. with a B.S. in Biochemistry.

Research Volunteer

Puja is a second-year undergraduate student in the NJIT and NJMS BS/MD program. Her previous research focused on developing DNA nanostructures on Cadnano and Daedalus interfaces for future medical therapeutics. 

Research Volunteer

Juan is a first-year medical student (MD) at Rutgers NJMS from Miami, FL. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry in 2021 from Florida State University (FSU) and a Graduate Certificate in Molecular Biology and Biomedical Sciences from Florida International University (FIU) in 2023. During his time at FIU, Juan researched the fluid biomarker potential for Alzheimer's Disease and miRNA-211 as it relates to health and disease. Juan is interested in becoming a GI oncologist. He wishes to discover new treatment resistance mechanisms and ingenious ways of targeting the tumor microenvironment.