Current Members
Mandë Holford, PhD, Principal Investigator
Mandë Holford is an Associate Professor in Chemistry at CUNY-Hunter College and Graduate Center, with scientific appointments at the American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medical College. Her appointments reflect her traditional training in synthetic peptide chemistry and her subsequent interest in evolution of venomous marine organisms and characterization of venom peptides. Dr. Holford’s research is at the forefront of Chemical and Biological Diversity – pioneering an evolutionarily integrated approach to the discovery of novel venom peptides for therapeutic development in pain and cancer.
Prachi Anand, PhD, Post-Doctoral Fellow
Prachi Anand received her Doctorate degree in Biomedical Sciences in March 2010 and Masters in Biomedical Science in June 2004 from Dr. B.R Ambedkar Center for Biomedical Research, University of Delhi, Delhi, India. Her PhD studies were focused on therapeutics of diabetes from natural products. She has qualified for the combined National Eligibility Test (NET) conducted by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and University Grants Commission, Government of India in 2004 and received the CSIR-UGC Junior and Senior Research Fellowship.
Prachi joined Dr. Holford’s group in May 2010 as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemistry, CUNY-York College. In Dr. Holford’s lab she is working on the synthesis and characterization of novel teretoxins to identify specific ligands for ion channels and receptors. The other project she works on, is the delivery of therapeutic peptides across the blood brain barrier using viral nanocontainers. She is also studying the anticancer activity of novel teretoxins in various cell lines.
Patrick Kelly, Graduate Student
Patrick holds a BA from San Francisco State University and an MA from Columbia University, both in English literature. After working as a writer and editor, he trained for several years full-time in a Zen Buddhist monastery. He entered the CUNY Biochemistry Ph.D. program in 2013 and is currently investigating in vivo delivery mechanisms for small peptide therapeutics.
Tanya Napolitano, Graduate Student
Tanya received a BS in forensic toxicology in 2015 from John Jay College. She then worked as a research chemist for the Research Foundation of CUNY, synthesizing mitomycin interstrand cross-linked DNA adducts and studying their effects on cancer cells. Tanya entered the CUNY Biochemistry Ph.D. Program in Fall 2016 and joined the Holford lab in Spring 2017. Currently, she is working on developing a high-throughput method for screening purified Terebridae venom peptides. Using an integrated approach, a validated teretoxin functional activity pipeline will be made to identify potential therapeutic candidates. Teretoxins are an uncharted territory for drug development that can ultimately overcome molecular and pharmacokinetic obstacles. To develop this high-throughput method for screening purified Terebridae venom peptides, a variety of approaches will be used. These approaches include two peptide synthesis methods, both recombinant and synthetic, three instrument screening platforms for crude venom characterization, and three types of bioactive assays to test the functionality of venom peptides.
William Deng, Undergraduate Researcher
William is currently a sophomore majoring in Chemistry and minoring in Mathematics and Physics at Hunter College. He joined the Holford lab in January of 2018. His work at the lab involves the synthesis and purification of terebrid snail peptides by employing Fmoc solid phase peptide synthesis and liquid chromatography. He has also involved in modifying protocols experimentally so that they can be adapted in characterizing the more recently discovered terebrid venom peptides. After graduating, William hopes to pursue a doctoral degree in either Synthetic Organic Chemistry or Organometallic Chemistry.
Former Members
PhD Graduate Students
Abba Leffler, PhD, (Senior Scientist, Private Firm)
Elizabeth Mary Wright, PhD, (Lecturer, Princeton University)
Giulia Fassio (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sapienza Università di Roma)
Aida Verdes (Assistant Professor, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Juliette Gorson (Science Communicator, Russo Partners, LLC)
Masters Graduate Students
Danny Simpson, MS, (Bioinformatics Specialist, New York Genome Center)
Raj Musunuri, MS, (Bioinformatics Specialist, New York Genome Center)
Emily Lin, MS, (PhD candidate, CUNY Graduate Center)
R. S. Ramakrishnan, MS, (Bioinformatics Specialist, Mount Sinai Hospital)
Undergraduate Students
Henry Yelkin (Medical School Bound)
Marouf Hossain (MD candidate, SUNY Downstate)
Manjeet Kaur (Masters candidate, CUNY Graduate Center)
Peter Filipenko (Bioinformatics Consultant)
Girish Ramrattan (Bioinformatics Facility Manager, Weill Cornell Medicine)
Michelle Yun (MS candidate in Pharmacology, Boston University)
Magid Mohamed (MD/PhD candidate, UT South Western)
John Moon (MD candidate, University of Chicago)
Michael Lyudmer (Medical School Bound)
Nicolette Somogyi (Masters candidate, NYU)
Corina Grijuc, (Medical School Bound)
Carolina Santamaria (Graduate School)
Emily Lau (Graduate School, UC Santa Barbara)
Laboratory Managers
Saama Salim (Nursing candidate)
Kelly Huang (Nursing candidate)
Justin Ho (Graduate School, Cornell University)