CMTM Trainees Anthony Spinella and Ling Shi Win Coveted NIH Fellowships

Congratulations to two CMTM Trainees for each winning the coveted NIH F30 Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual Predoctoral NRSA for MD/​PhD students!  This is an extremely competitive graduate student fellowship,  and we couldn’t be prouder of our trainees.

Anthony Spinella is an integral member of the Varelas Lab on the BU Medical Campus, and his project titled “Defining age-associated alterations in oral squamous cell carcinoma,” started April 1, 2023 and has a mechanotransduction focus.  The Varelas Lab uses molecular and genetic approaches to understand how cell polarity and mechanical cues direct the activity of the transcriptional effectors YAP and TAZ to control mammalian organ development, homeostasis and disease processes.

Linzheng Shi is co-mentored by Dr. Hadi Nia of the Nia Lab in BME and Dr. Joseph Mizgerd of the Pulmonary Center at BUMS, and his project is titled “Probing immunovascular mechanobiology in pneumonia-associated acute lung injury at the single capillary level.”  The Nia lab conducts research at the interface of physical sciences and molecular biology to answer the following key questions in cancer and pulmonary pathologies such as pneumonia, fibrosis, and COPD. We develop and utilize sophisticated models of disease in multiple scales (whole organ to single cell), and in multiple settings (in vivo, ex vivo, in vitro, and in silico).