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July 5, 2007

New Staff Member Biographies - July 2007

Dr. Juana González Baseta joined the Center on April 30, 2007 as the Director of the new Immunomonitoring Resource Center. She received her master's degree in Biological Science from the University of the Basque Country in Spain and earned a PhD at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. Her doctoral thesis concerned the characterization of a plasma membrane protein on human eosinophils. After earning her PhD, she did postdoctoral research at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM). At MSKCC she studied the physiological role of TNF-alpha in the development of thymocytes. At AECOM she studied the suppression or upregulation of genes in T lymphocytes by rapamycin, an immunosuppressive and antineoplastic agent. She also was involved in a study to determine the involvement of A1 (bcl-2 family member) in activation and apoptosis. Furthermore, she characterized the cellular immune response to a preventive cervical cancer vaccine in patients at risk for contracting HPV. Her most recent project evaluated prolactin’s immunomodulatory effects in different mouse models of the human disorder lupus erythematosis. All these projects involved extensive phenotyping and functional analysis of immune compartments by flow cytometry, which will also be the main emphasis of the new Immunomonitoring Resource Center.  Her contact information is: jgonzalez@rockefeller.edu; 212-327-7581
 
Dr. Mayte Suárez-Fariñas joined the Center in January 2007 as a Research Associate/Biostatistician. Dr. Suárez-Fariñas received an M.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Havana, after which she worked for two years as a researcher at the National Center for Clinical Trials in Havana.  She received an M. Sc. in Statistics in 1999 and a PhD in Decision Support Methods in 2003 from Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. Dr. Suárez-Fariñas completed her postdoctoral studies at the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology at the Rockefeller University.  During this time she collaborated on the creation of Harshlight, a corrective make-up program for microarray chips.  Dr. Suárez-Fariñas is currently working in the Laboratory for Investigative Dermatology at the Rockefeller University, focusing on the statistical analysis of genomic data, but she is available on a part-time basis as a Biostatistician for the Center for Clinical and Translational Science.  Dr. Suárez-Fariñas will provide assistance to investigators in areas such as statistical design and analysis.  Her contact information is: farinam@rockefeller.edu; 212-327-8213
 
Mr. Nickolay Khazanov joined the Center's Informatics Department on May 7, 2007 as a Phenotype Analyst/Scientific Programmer. Mr. Khazanov receieved a Masters of Science in Bioinformatics in 2006 from the University of Michigan, where his research interests  focused on structural bioinformatics and molecular dynamics.  As a graduate student he helped develop and annotate an extensive protein-ligand complex database (www.BindingMOAD.org) for use in drug development applications. In addition, he has a strong background in computer science, as well as genetics and microbiology, which he obtained as an undergraduate student at Rutgers University. He also has significant programming and research experience in both industry and academic settings. At the Center, Mr. Khazanov will be involved in the development of a Phenotyping Recoding and Analysis Tools which will facilitate Rockefeller University researchers in identifying, collecting, and analyzing patient data. His contact information is: nkhazanov@rockefeller.edu; 212-327-7633
 
Ms. Maureen Pollina, RN, BSN, was promoted to the position of Nurse Manager in the Outpatient Unit on May 1, 2007. Ms. Pollina previously worked in the Outpatient Unit from April, 2006 until her promotion. She brought considerable nursing and clinical experience to the Center, especially in the realm of dermatology and addiction, having obtained Certification in Addiction Nursing (CARN) in 2004. Most recently, Ms. Pollina completed her Legal Nurse Consultant Certification Course at Mary Mount Manhattan College. In addition to all of this expertise, she was the Nurse Supervisor of the Adolescent Methadone clinic for 4 years where she was responsible for clinical supervision of the nursing staff as well as daily operations and staffing. Ms. Pollina has been in a supervisory position through several successful JAHCO surveys! In 1996 she received the Nurse Excellence Award in Psychiatric Nursing from The Payne Whitney Clinic, New York Presbyterian Hospital. Since joining the Center staff, Ms. Pollina has consistantly provided quality patient care and has significantly contributed to the smooth functioning of the Outpatient Unit. She has embraced the role of the Clinical Research Nurse and has been a quick study to the research process.  She aspires to become “expert” in clinical research. Her contact information is: mpollina@rockefeller.edu; 212-327-8404
 
Ms. Tingting Song first joined the Center as a temporary employee in November 2006 and was hired as a full-time employee in April 2007 as the new Biostatistical Programmer in the Research Design and Biostatistics department. Ms. Song received a BS in Statistics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2004 and then came to the U.S. where she received her M.S. in Statistics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. (with an impressive 4.0 GPA!) While at Stony Brook, Ms. Song was a Research Assistant in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics and later was a biostatistician trainee in the General Clinical Research Center (GCRC). In her role as a Biostatistical Programmer at the Center, Ms. Song writes and modifes C libraries for S-PLUS and creates S-PLUS codes to increase speed and flexibility of a statistical scoring method. She will also be developing software packages employing statistical methods especially for multivariate ordinal data.  She will also provide technical support to clinical investigators. Her contact information is: tsong01@rockefeller.edu; 212-327-8021