Lab Members

Dr. Kim is interested in the relationships between stem cell biology, cancer biology, and lung biology. Carla earned her doctorate in Genetics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. As a graduate student in the laboratory of John Petrini, she studied the role of the Rad50 gene in DNA damage responses and homeostasis in vivo. She found that a point mutation in the murine Rad50 gene led to bone marrow failure (likely due to hematopoietic stem cell failure) as well as increased suseptibility to hematopoietic malignancy. These studies stimulated her interest in determining if stem cells played a role in the initiation of cancer. She went on to a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Tyler Jacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Cancer Research. There, she developed a method to isolate the first stem cell population from the adult murine lung, termed bronchioalveolar stem cells (BASCs). She also showed that BASCs are critically affected by an oncogenic K-ras mutation and may be the cell-of-origin of lung adenocarcinomas.

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Post-Doctoral Fellows

Sima Zacharek, PhD

Sima completed her graduate studies in Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Since joining the lab in November of 2006 she has become interested in the molecular mechanisms regulating BASCs, and in the development of genetic tools to study BASC function in vivo.

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Kerstin Sinkevicius, PhD

Kerstin joined the lab in January 2008 and is interested in examining the role of cancer stem cells in human lung cancer growth, recurrence, and metastasis. She graduated with a degree in chemistry from Grinnell College in 2001 and received her PhD in cancer biology from the University of Chicago in 2007.

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Joo-Hyeon Lee, PhD

Joohyeon received her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from KAIST, Korea, where she studied the molecular mechanisms of cell cycle regulation with knockout mouse models. She joined the lab in March 2009 and her current research interests are the understanding of the role of the microenvironment in BASC regulation and lung tumorigenesis.

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Christine Fillmore, PhD

Chris is interested in elucidating epigenetic mechanisms that control lung cancer subtype and disease resistance. She studied microbiology at Middlebury College and became interested in cancer genetics while working at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as a technician. She then earned her Ph.D. at Tufts University Sackler School where she studied breast cancer stem cells.

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Kristen Tropea, MD

Kristen is a board certified Pediatrician and a clinical fellow in the Neonatal-Perinatal Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. She received her BS with Honors in Chemistry from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her MD from the University of Virginia and completed pediatric residency training at University of North Carolina Children's Hospital. Kristen joined the lab in July 2010 and is interested in studying the role of BASCs in physiologic lung development and lung injury.

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Allison Lau

Allison completed her undergraduate degree in Biology from the Pennsylvania State University, where she studied phylogenetics in the lab of Dr. Kateryna Makova. Currently a graduate student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program at Harvard Medical School, she joined the Kim Lab in 2009. Allison is interested in molecular mechanisms regulating BASCs and is working to elucidate the role of transcription factors in BASC function and lung cancer.

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Christina Kriegel, PhD

Christina earned her PhD in Food Nanotechnology in September 2008 from University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The studies she focued on included electrospinning of biopolymeric nanofibers in the presence of surfactant and surfactant micelles.
Following her studies at UMass, Christina went on to a postdoctoral fellowship at Northeastern University where she worked to develop polymeric gene silencing delivery systems to target disease sites. As a member of the Kim Lab, Christina is interested in cancer stem cells and their role in lung cancer.

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Morgan Matthews

Morgan is a sophomore biology major at Harvard University. She first came to the Kim Lab in the summer of 2011 through the Harvard Stem Cell Institute's Summer Internship Program. Morgan is now conducting her undergraduate research in lab studying the molecular mechanisms regulating lung injury repair.

Elizabeth "Libby" Perry

Libby joined the Kim Lab in January 2010. She graduated from the University of Maine with a degree in Public Management. Libby provides coordinating and administrative support for the Kim Lab. If you are interested in learning more about the Kim Lab, or receiving copies of Kim Lab papers, please email Libby.

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Lab Alumni

Stephen Curtis, PhD

Steve defended his doctoral thesis in September of 2011. Steve joined the Kim Lab in 2007 as a graduate student in the department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard Medical School. Steve's work in the Kim Lab was published in a first-author paper in Cell Stem Cell, identifying genetic markers for tumor-propagting cells in some lung cancer tumors. Steve is now an Analyst at Reata Pharmaceuticals in Irving, Texas.

Alan Chou

Alan joined the lab through the HSCI Summer Undergraduate Research Program in 2007. Alan performed studies to validate gene expression data in lung tissue sections. He recently graduated as a Pre-Med majoring in Biology at Harvard University. In September 2010, Alan began medical school at Columbia University in New York, NY.

John Campbell

John graduated with highest honors from NC State in 2011. He is continuing his education in laboratory science at the National Institutes of Health. He joined the Kim Lab through the Summer Honors Undergraduate Research Program at Harvard Medical School in the summer of 2010.

David Gludish

David earned his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and a Master of Science, Biochemsitry degree both at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. He now moved to Ithaca, New York and is studying at Cornell University.

Eva Leder, MD

Eva is a board certified Pediatrician and graduated as a clinical fellow in Pediatric Pulmonology at Children's Hospital Boston. She received her MD from the Universtiy of Vienna, Austria and completed pediatric residency training at Schneider Children's Hospital, Albert Einstein school of Medicine in New York. Eva joined the lab in July 2008 and studied the role of BASCs in physiologic lung development and lung injury.

Dave Raiser

Dave completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Richmond, where he studied biology. In the Kim lab, he worked on the development of a lung stem cell transplantation model. Dave is currently a student in the BBS Program at Harvard Medical School.

Arven Saunders

Arven has finished his master’s degree in molecular biology at Harvard Extension School in the Kim Lab. He attended Brandeis University where he earned his bachelor’s degree in biology in 2006 and attends the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, NY.

Rebecca Roach

Becca was the first member of our lab and joined after completing her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Central Oklahoma. Becca is now a student at Boston University School of Public Health, studying towards her MPH concentrating in International Health.

Janice Wong

Janice joined the Kim Lab in November of 2010. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she also earned her M.S. Janice is currently applying to medical schools.

Raffaella Zamponi

Raffaella earned her master's degree in Biotechnology at D'Annunzio University in Italy. She joined the lab in March 2009 and she studied genetic approaches to investigate cancer stem cells in lung adenocarcinoma.