News & Events

Pathobiology Thesis Seminar

Speaker: Carolina Duque (Ph.D. Candidate)
Title: “Deciphering the immunologic landscape of Chagas cardiomyopathy pathogenesis”
Date/Time: Monday, May 4, 2026 @ 11:00am EST
Place: JHSPH, Room W1020
Advisor: Dr. Monica Mugnier

Pathobiology Thesis Seminar

Speaker: Niklas Bachmann, M.S. (Ph.D. Candidate)
Title: “Understanding mechanisms of HIV-1 persistence and targeting infected cells through HLA-E”
Date/Time: Tuesday, May 12, 2026 @ 3:00pm EST
Place: West Lecture Hall (Wood Basic Science Bldg/PCTB Ground Level)
Advisors: Dr. Robert F. Siliciano and Dr. Janet M. Siliciano

or Join via Zoom: https://jhjhm.zoom.us/j/93512064322?pwd=LaHMZLE8UJiPXpirANdUYi4j4wiR8t.1

Pathobiology Thesis Seminar

Speaker: Che-Min (Mason) Lo (Ph.D. Candidate)
Title: “Decoding host responses governing HBV control in HIV coinfection: intrahepatic regulators and neutralizing antibodies”
Date/Time: Friday, May 15, 2026 @ 2:30pm EST
Place: Rangos 590 (from PCTB/WBSB, head across bridge to Rangos, take stairs on left up to 5^th floor. Room is on left)
Advisors: Dr. Chloe Thio and Dr. Ashwin Balagopal

or Join via Zoom: https://jhjhm.zoom.us/j/91011811911?pwd=z1vrqqTMs3XLSjku7n2xHQ5D32EYXX.1

Congratulations to Pathobiology graduate, Ale Trujillo, Ph.D.!

Maria Alejandra (Ale) Trujillo, Ph.D. (2025) was selected as one of ten exceptional scholars from across Johns Hopkins University to join the 2025 class of the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. This prestigious honor recognizes her outstanding scholarship, leadership, character, service, and advocacy for traditionally underrepresented groups in academia.

The selection process was highly competitive, making this achievement a testament to Ale’s dedication and impact in her field. Her commitment to academic excellence and inclusivity embodies the legacy of Edward A. Bouchet, the first African American Ph.D. recipient in the U.S.

Congratulations again, Ale and keep up the outstanding work that you are doing!

Congratulations to Pathobiology graduate student, PhD Candidate, Si-Sim Kang, MS!

Si-Sim Kang was recently awarded a PhRMA pre-doctoral fellowship grant for drug delivery. The PhRMA Foundation awarded 21 early-career researchers a total of nearly $1.7 million in 2024 fellowships and grants focused on drug discovery and drug delivery research.

Si-Sim is a PhD candidate in the Pathobiology program. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in life science and Master’s from National Taiwan University. Her journey began with significant contributions during her Master’s, exploring Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy in Primary Biliary Cholangitis. Si-Sim’s expertise extends further back to their undergraduate years, marked by impactful research on the role of Granzyme B in Regulatory T Cells and contributions to the study of X-Linked Inhibitor of Apoptotic Protein in the non-canonical NF-Kb activation signaling pathway of necroptosis. Currently, Si-Sim’s work focuses on immunoengineering methods for cancer therapy. She developed a platform to use nanoparticles to expand human antigen-specific CD4 T cells for cancer therapy. Si-Sim enjoys reading, hiking, traveling, and playing piano in her free time.

Visit link for more details about the PhRMA Foundation: PhRMA Foundation Awards $1.7M in 2024 Drug Discovery and Delivery Fellowships and Grants   — PhRMA Foundation

Congratulations to Pathobiology graduate, Amanda Loftin, DVM, PhD!!

Amanda was selected as a winner of the Empower Your Pitch! Competition hosted by PHutures. Amanda received the PHutures Award for Outstanding Creativity in Research Communication for her 3-minute presentation titled: "A Fishy Solution to the Organ Shortage Crisis". Congratulations to Amanda, for this extraordinary achievement, demonstrating your excellent communication skills as well as sharing the impact you and your team are making in the important field of organ transplant.

Congratulations to Pathobiology graduate Amanda Loftin, DVM, PhD!!

Amanda was selected to receive awards from two of the premier societies in the field of transplantation. She received the American Society of Reconstructive Transplantation (ASRT) Travel Grant Award for her abstract entitled “Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Prevents Antibody-Mediated Rejection in a Swine Model of Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation”. ASRT Travel Grants are competitive and only awarded to the top two abstracts presented at the ASRT 2022 Biennial Meeting. Amanda was also a recipient of an American Society of Transplantation (AST) Travel Grant Award and was selected to attend the AST Fellows Symposium on Transplantation from September 23-25, 2022 in Grapevine, Tx

AMANDA LOFTIN, D.V.M., Ph.D. (August, 2025)

Amanda Loftin is a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) and PhD candidate in the Pathobiology Graduate Program working to apply her specialized training in animal medicine to human disease focused research. Her research aims to increase the supply of transplantable organs by extending organ preservation times. To do this, she uses an integrated approach that combines subzero temperatures, supercooling, and bio-inspired cryoprotectants. While under the mentorship of Dr. Gerald Brandacher in the Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA) laboratory, Amanda has established a pre-clinical large animal renal autotransplantation model and developed ex-vivo machine perfusion protocols which she uses for her investigations. She is instrumental in the VCA laboratory’s efforts to develop organ preservation and transport technologies. Before joining the VCA lab, Amanda did research at UCLA where she developed animal models of orthopedic implant infections and pioneered new implant coatings to prevent surgical infections. As a doctorate student at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine she received multiple prestigious awards including a T35 Short-Term Institutional Training Grant and a Cancer Research Training Award from the National Cancer Institute. These awards supported her studies on satellite muscle regeneration at Stanford University School of Medicine as well as her research investigating the immunopathogenesis of HIV in the Laboratory of Viral Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Congratulations to Pathobiology graduate, Carli Jones, Ph.D.!

Carli was chosen for the P.E.O. Scholar Award based on her scholarly excellence, academic achievement, and career goals. Carli is studying the relationship between radiation exposure and radiotherapy and the gastrointestinal microbiome. She currently aspires to work for NASA and to study the effects of spaceflight on the human body, and particularly in the areas of immunology and the gut-brain axis.

About Carli Jones, Ph.D.

Carli is from Hillsborough, New Jersey and received her Bachelors of Science in Biology with a minor in Bioengineering from Lafayette College in spring 2017. At Lafayette, Carli worked with Dr. Robert Kurt on projects involving the TLR4 signaling pathway. Since matriculating in the Pathobiology program in fall 2017, she joined the lab of Dr. Karen Sfanos. In collaboration with Dr. Sfanos and Dr. Catherine Davis, she was awarded a seed grant from Space@Hopkins in 2018 to study the effects of cosmic radiation on the gut microbiome, and the effects of the radiation on the gut-brain axis. Now, Carli’s work focuses on the effects of radiotherapy for prostate cancer on the GI microbiota and how different microbiome compositions influence treatment response. She has also developed an interest in bioinformatics and sequence analysis through this work. After graduation, Carli aspires work for NASA and study the effects of spaceflight on the human body. In her free time, Carli enjoys fitness, cooking, coffee, and breweries. She has also fostered 8 dogs and 6 cats through City Dogs Rescue throughout her time in Baltimore.

Congratulations to Pathobiology alumni, Daniel Monaco, Ph.D., Tom Nirschl, Ph.D., and Audrey Knight, Ph.D.!

Our Pathobiology students' work, along with other collaborators, was recently published in Nature Communications!

Daniel R. Monaco, Brandon M. Sie, Thomas R. Nirschl, Audrey C. Knight, Hugh A. Sampson, Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn, Robert A. Wood, Robert G. Hamilton, Pamela A. Frischmeyer-Guerrerio & H. Benjamin Larman. Profiling serum antibodies with a pan allergen phage library identifies key wheat allergy epitopes. Nature Communications January 22, 2021, volume 12, Article number: 379 (2021)

Congratulations to Pathobiology graduate, Areli Lopez, Ph.D.!

Areli's work was recently published in OncoImmunology!

Zoila A. Lopez-Bujanda, Matthew G. Chaimowitz, Todd D. Armstrong, Jeremy B. Foote, Leisha A. Emens & Charles Drake. Robust antigen-specific CD8 T cell tolerance to a model prostate cancer neoantigen. OncoImmunology, 9:1, 1809926, DOI: 10.1080/2162402X.2020.1809926

Zoila Areli Lopez-Bujanda (Areli), Ph.D. (Graduate, Dec. 2020)

Areli is a PhD candidate in the Pathobiology program at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. She received her B.S. in Biochemistry and her M.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of Sonora in Mexico before coming to the United States to work as a research assistant in the Laboratory of Dr. Saraswati Sukumar, at Johns Hopkins. After two years in the laboratory of Dr. Sukumar, where she helped develop a serum-based assay to monitor patients with breast cancer, Areli decided to stay at Johns Hopkins for her PhD studies and later joined the laboratory of Dr. Charles Drake, where she worked on elucidating an important mechanism of immunosuppression in prostate cancer that led to the initiation of a clinical trial to treat this condition. Later this year, Areli will join the laboratory of Dr. Dan Littman for a postdoctoral fellowship.

Congratulations to Pathobiology graduate, Janelle Montagne, M.S., Ph.D.!

Janelle's work was recently published in The Lancet!

Janelle M. Montagne, Xuwen Alice Zheng, Iago Pinal-Fernandez, Jose C. Milisenda, Lisa Christopher-Stine, Thomas E. Lloyd, Andrew L. Mammen and H. Benjamin Larman. Ultra-efficient sequencing of T Cell receptor repertoires reveals shared responses in muscle from patients with Myositis. The Lancet, Vol 59, September 3, 2020, 102972 DOI: 

Janelle Montagne, M.S., Ph.D. (May, 2020)

After earning her Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Lafayette College, Janelle studied mechanisms of autoimmune rheumatic disease in the Division of Rheumatology here at Hopkins. During that time, she earned her Masters of Science in biotechnology/bioinformatics. She enrolled in the Pathobiology program in 2015 and subsequently joined the laboratory of Dr. H. Benjamin Larman, where she established projects fusing her interests in T cell biology, biotechnology development, and bioinformatics. During her PhD training, Janelle successfully developed an ultra-efficient approach for T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire sequencing, enabling her to interrogate the complexity of T cell responses in muscle from patients with myositis. She further integrated her TCR sequencing method into a high-throughput flow cytometry assay for the detection of antigen-specific T cells. Throughout her training, Janelle was actively engaged with the Pathobiology program, serving as Chief Graduate Student from 2017-2018. She is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow in oncology under the mentorship of Dr. Elana Fertig and Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee integrating computational, technological, and experimental approaches to understanding mechanisms of response and resistance to cancer immunotherapy.

Congratulations to Lionel Chia, Ph.D.!

For his work presented on how HMGA1 induces FGF19 to foster tumor-stromal cell crosstalk and drive tumor progression in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, Lionel Chia received the AACR-Doreen J. Putrah Cancer Research Foundation Scholar-in-Training Award. Lionel presented at the 2020 AACR Annual Meeting, which took place virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Scholar-in-Training Awards are competitive and are presented to those with high-quality abstracts and applications from a large candidate pool.

Lionel is a 4th year PhD student in the Graduate Program in Pathobiology under the mentorship of Dr. Linda Resar, whose laboratory focuses on studying molecular mechanisms leading to cancer, blood diseases, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia and other coagulopathies. Lionel is studying the role of the chromosomal architectural protein HMGA1 in prostate and pancreatic cancer. He hopes that by understanding more about HMGA1, he would be able to develop additional therapies against HMGA1 and its associated pathways to treat cancer. Outside of the laboratory, Lionel’s interests include playing his guitar, running, and spending time with friends.