Alumni

Irene Chernova, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine who's studying the role of B cells in lupus nephritis in the Craft laboratory. Dr. Chernova received her MD and PhD in Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania and then completed her Internal Medicine and Nephrology fellowship training at Yale New Haven Hospital. The Craft lab allowed her to combine her interest in clinical kidney disease and love of kidney physiology with her training in Immunobiology and tackle questions regarding immune cells survival in the inflamed kidney. Specifically, Dr. Chernova is interested in how the unique ionic environment of the kidney influences the survival and function of infiltrating lymphocytes as well as broader questions concerning ion-immune cell interactions which she hopes will form the foundation of her independent laboratory.

Rupak Datta, MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Yale School of Medicine and an Assistant Hospital Epidemiologist at the Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System. He completed his undergraduate training at Tufts University, earned his MPH at the Yale School of Public Health, and received his MD/PhD at the University of California Irvine School of Medicine. The central focus of his research is to improve clinical outcomes and reduce adverse events among older adults through antimicrobial stewardship. His research has been supported by the NIA Imbedded Pragmatic Alzheimer’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease-Related Dementias Clinical Trials Collaboratory, Yale Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, and Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. His areas of interest include healthcare epidemiology, antimicrobial resistance, and quality improvement.

Dr. Dela Cruz completed his research training through an MD/PhD program in the area of immunology and virology from University of Toronto and Yale. Clinically, he is trained in internal medicine, and specializes in pulmonary and critical care medicine and is currently an Associate Professor at Yale University in the same department. He is also the founding director for the Center for Pulmonary Infection Research and Treatment (CPIRT). www.cpirt.yale.edu. His laboratory is interested in studying the role of respiratory infection in the pathogenesis of acute and chronic lung diseases. Specifically, his work focuses on how lung infection contribute to inflammation, injury and tissue repair in the lung. This has allowed the lab to carefully study the molecular and cellular responses of several novel mediators in the lung.His laboratory focuses on two main research programs. (1) Studying novel immune regulators in the lung during respiratory infections. (2) Studying the effects of cigarette smoke (CS) exposure in the pathogenesis of airway and lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) using preclinical genetic mouse models and human biosamples. The goal of the lab is also to be able to confirm and translate the findings using biospecimens from the established and establishing cohort of human patients with various lung diseases.COPD is a composite entity that includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, is a leading cause of death in the world, and is a disease that is in need of new treatments. One of the goal of our laboratory is to investigate the interaction between CS and respiratory virus infection in the pathogenesis of COPD and identify novel therapeutic targets for this respiratory disease. It has been long thought that the frequent respiratory infections in COPD patients are due to their depressed immune function. Our studies have revealed that CS-exposed hosts have an over-exaggerated immune reaction to viral infections. Frequent acute COPD exacerbations correlate with increased rate of disease progression and more loss of lung function in COPD especially if it is due to viral infections. Our studies have shown that CS exposure has an impressive ability to regulate the innate immunity in the lung after influenza virus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. CS enhances the inflammation, alveolar destruction and airway fibrosis caused by influenza virus and RSV. These effects are mediated by type I interferon and RIG-like helicase antiviral innate immune pathway. CS exposure also results in the induction of interleukin-15 in the setting of these respiratory infections. We hypothesize that these novel mechanistic pathways may explain the heightened inflammatory response and worsening lung functions in COPD patients with multiple virally-induced exacerbations, and the chronic lung inflammation seen in stable COPD patients. We have also translated our findings by studying these immune mediators in patients infected with various respiratory viruses and have thus far collected >300 human biosamples.YCCI Scholar 2011

Deborah Doroshow is Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Adjunct Assistant Professor of the History of Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine.She graduated from Harvard College in 2004 with a B.A. in History and Science, where she wrote a senior thesis entitled "The Injection of Insulin Into American Psychiatry," which explored the history of insulin coma therapy for schizophrenia. It was awarded the Thomas Temple Hoopes Award for outstanding senior thesis, and a portion of it was subsequently published in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.She earned her Ph.D. in History with distinction (concentration in the History of Science and Medicine) from Yale University in December 2012, winning the Edwin W. Small prize for outstanding dissertation in American History and the Pressman Career Development Award from the American Association of the History of Medicine.  Her book, Emotionally Disturbed: A History of Caring for America's Troubled Children, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2019. Additional historical work has included a study of bedwetting alarms and parenting practices in mid-twentieth century America (Isis, 2010) and a history of laws mandating premarital syphilis testing (Social History of Medicine, 2019). She is an active member of the American Association for the History of Medicine and enjoys mentoring clinician-historians in training.   Deborah earned her M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 2013. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine in 2015 and her fellowship in hematology and oncology, also at Yale, in 2019.  At Mount Sinai, she treats adults with lung cancer as well as adults with a variety of solid tumors as part of the Early Phase Trials Unit, where her work focuses on the DNA damage response.

Dr. Benjamin Goldman-Israelow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine in the section of Infectious Diseases. He obtained his AB in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis and his MD and PhD degrees from The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He joined Yale internal medicine in the ABIM Short Track Pathway, completing residency and Infectious Diseases fellowship training. During fellowship, Dr. Goldman-Israelow joined the laboratory of Dr. Akiko Iwasaki for his postdoctoral studies. There, he has studied SARS-CoV-2 infection, pathogenesis, and immunity in both patients and pre-clinical models. His work has led to the development of one of the first mouse models to study SARS-CoV-2, the identification of immunologic factors contributing to COVID-19 pathogenesis and protection, and the development of a novel mucosal vaccine strategy that protects against pathology and transmission.Dr. Goldman-Israelow is a practicing infectious diseases physician and also conducts biomedical research. His lab is focused on understanding the development of mucosal immune memory to emerging and endemic respiratory pathogens. Working through the lenses of natural infection and vaccination, the Israelow lab aims to better understand the correlates of protection and transmission of pandemic-associated pathogens, and leverage this research to develop the next generation of mucosal vaccines and therapeutics.

Dr. Raimund Herzog is an Assistant Professor in Endocrinology at Yale School of Medicine. He received his M.D. from University of Ulm, Germany before moving to the US, where he pursued his training in Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine. He earned his M.H.S. in the YCCI Junior Faculty Scholars program while further specializing in Endocrinology at Yale. In addition to caring for patients at the Yale Diabetes Center and teaching medical students Dr. Herzog maintains an active translational research program. A physician scientist with a strong interest in neuroscience and diabetes, Dr. Herzog’s laboratory is focused on characterizing and preventing its central nervous complications. He uses state-of-the-art technologies like in vivo NMR spectroscopy and phospho-proteomics to define the impact of diabetes and intensive insulin treatment on brain metabolism and cognition. His work extends from cell culture and animal models all the way to translation of findings to human subjects. It has produced novel insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying brain energy substrate metabolism thereby laying the basis for the development of targeted therapies that will protect the brain from diabetes complications and injury. In a related area Dr. Herzog’s workgroup has engaged in several collaborative projects that apply his understanding of metabolism towards more comprehensive and unbiased metabolomic analysis of peripheral plasma metabolites in an obese and diabetic adolescent cohort. Furthermore he is exploring the role of circulating small molecules and lipids in the context of aging-related cognitive decline in a cohort of elderly subjects. As part of his studies he has established a close working relationship with the Magnetic Resonance Research Center, Keck Mass Spectrometry Center and the Biostatistics Resource at Yale. His studies are funded by several NIH and private foundation awards and have resulted in high impact publications in journals like The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Diabetes and Endocrinology.

Dr. Kibbey obtained his undergraduate degrees in music (B.A.) and an honors degree in biochemistry (B.S.) at Trinity University in San Antonio in 1991. He then obtained his combined M.D. and Ph.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 2000. His Ph.D. was in Cellular and Molecular Biophysics and involved determining the NMR structure of peptides from the LDL receptor under his mentors Drs. R.G.W. Anderson and L. Gierasch. Subsequently, he went to Yale University in where he was selected for the ABIM short-track in Categorical Internal Medicine. In 2002 he stayed on for his Endocrinology fellowship at Yale and is now board certified in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology. While in his fellowship he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Gerald Shulman on metabolism in the pathophysiology of Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus. Here he identified mitochondrial GTP as a metabolic signal in the mitochondria sensing flux in the pancreatic beta-cell as a crucial component of the signal to secrete insulin. His laboratory also has developed a novel platform using stable isotopes and mass spectrometry named Mass Isotopomer MultiOrdinate Spectral Analysis (MIMOSA) that measures the flow of metabolism inside and between tissues. He is now an Associate Professor in the Departments of Internal Medicine/Endocrinology and Cellular & Molecular Physiology. He continues to see patients at Yale Health and has an independent NIH-supported laboratory doing research on islet and whole body physiology in order to understand/prevent/treat Type-2 diabetes.

Dr. Korn obtained her MD, PhD degrees at the University of Pennsylvania in 2015. She completed internal medicine residency at Yale and started rheumatology fellowship in July 2017 via the ABIM physician-scientist pathway. She joined the laboratory of Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov in July 2018 for her post doctoral training.

Dr Mensah is a graduate of the NIH medical-scientist training program (MSTP) at the University of Rochester where he received his PhD in immunology under the direction of Edward Schwarz, PhD and Christopher Ritchlin, MD. His dissertation looked at immune system regulation of osteoclastogenesis in the context of inflammatory arthritis. His research won first place out of over 1,500 submissions in the basic science research category at the 2006 American College of Physicians National Medical Student Abstract Competition. His dissertation received the Melville A. Hare Award for Distinction in Research (2009). He also had the honor of presenting his research at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting,the American Society for Clinical Investigation annual meeting, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research annual meeting and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons annual meeting. He is the co-inventor of a novel monoclonal antibody patented for use in the identification of osteoclast precursors. He has also done research under the mentorship of John Mudgett, PhD at Merck Research Laboratories, Steven Teitelbaum, MD and F. Patrick Ross, PhD at Washington University in St Louis, as well as Steven Goldring, MD, Edward Purdue, PhD, Lionel Ivashkiv, MD, and Joseph Lane, MD at Hospital for Special Surgery. Dr Mensah is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha and Phi Beta Kappa honor societies. He has mentored high school, undergraduate, graduate and medical students. As part of his mentorship role, he has served as a judge for the New York City Science and Engineering Fair and the New England Science Symposium. He has also lectured for medical students and residents on the topic of immunology and musculoskeletal medicine topics. He received the Robert Leet Patterson and Clara Guthrie Patterson Trust Mentored Research Award to fund post-doctoral research with Eric Meffre, PhD on pathogenic roles of B cells in rheumatoid arthritis. He served on the Executive Council for the Yale Internal Medicine Residency Program and is on the Board of Directors of the American Physician Scientists Association.

Dr. Edward J. Miller, MD, PhD is the Vice Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine (Education) and an Associate Professor of Medicine and Radiology in the Section of Cardiovascular Medicine. Dr. Miller directs the clinical nuclear cardiology laboratory at Yale-New Haven Hospital as well as the Cardiology Fellowship Program for the Yale School of Medicine. His clinical and research interests center on the evaluation and treatment of infiltrative cardiomyopathies, particularly cardiac sarcoidosis and amyloidosis, and are focused on the role of nuclear cardiac imaging in diagnosing and defining treatment response in these disorders. Dr. Miller received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, majoring in Preprofessional Studies with a concentration in Science, Technology and Values. He completed medical school at the Loyola-Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago where he was awarded an American Heart Association Student Research Fellowship. Dr. Miller completed his internal medicine residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, as well as research and clinical cardiology fellowships at Yale. He also completed a PhD in Investigative Medicine from the Yale School of Medicine, working in the laboratory of Dr. Lawrence Young focused on "The Cardioprotective Effects of AMP-Activated Protein Kinase." Dr. Miller is a recipient of an NIH/NLHBI K08 award, mentored by Dr. Wilson Colucci at Boston University School of Medicine on "The Role and Regulation of the LKB1-AMPK Axis in Diabetic Cardiomyopathy." Dr. Miller was recruited back to Yale in 2015 to direct the nuclear cardiology lab and the cardiology fellowship program.  He was named Vice Chief (Education) for Yale Cardiovascular Medicine in 2021.

Dr. Singh is an Assistant Professor Adjunct in the Department of Internal Medicine (Nephrology) and is actively involved in medical education. He completed internal medicine residency and nephrology fellowship training at Yale, and is dual board certified. As a Postdoctoral Fellow and Instructor under the mentorship of Dr. Lloyd Cantley, Dr. Singh applied principles of cell biology and novel mass spectrometry-based imaging techniques to better understand the mechanisms of injury and barriers to regeneration in the acutely injured kidney.  Dr. Singh is Medical Director of Early Clinical Development and Experimental Sciences at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, where he develops novel therapeutics for kidney and immunologic diseases.

Dr. Tran is an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and cares for patients with melanoma and other advanced skin cancers at the Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven and in Smilow Guilford. She participated in the ABIM Physician-Scientist Research Pathway and completed both her internal medicine residency and hematology/oncology clinical fellowship at Yale.  She received her MD and PhD degrees from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.  Dr. Tran is actively engaged in translational research in melanoma brain metastases and developing novel therapeutics and drug combinations to improve responses in melanoma and overcome immune resistance.  She has been funded through the Yale Cancer Center T32, the YCC K12 Calabresi Immuno-Oncology Training Program (IOTP), and the Skin Cancer SPORE career enhancement program.  Dr. Tran is the principal investigator of several clinical trials in melanoma.

Silvia Vilarinho is a physician-scientist who uses genetics, genomics and human samples to investigate the molecular basis of various liver diseases of unknown etiology. Using these approaches, we have identified five novel genetic liver diseases. Our research goal is to continue to discover new genes important in liver function both in health and disease and to use cell biology and animal models to determine the specific mechanism(s) linking mutant gene to disease as a roadmap to further understand and treat rare and common liver diseases. This research approach provides new knowledge with direct impact in improving patient care and creates an outstanding scientific environment to train future physician-scientists and trainees with particular interest in human disease. Furthermore, I am very committed to make ‘genomic medicine for liver disease’ a reality in clinical practice worldwide.

I obtained my AB from Harvard University and my MD, PhD degrees in 2011 from University of Texas Southwestern with additional training done at the University of Paris. As a part of his MD/PhD training in the laboratories of Drs. Edward Wakeland and Chandra Mohan, I identified a key role for the CXCR4/SDF-1 axis in end-organ targeting (in mouse and man), an important insight in the pathogenesis of SLE. I then did my Internal Medicine internship and residency training at Yale and joined the ABIM Short Track Pathway into the Rheumatology fellowship. I joined the laboratory of Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov in July 2014 for my postdoctoral training.  There, based on my clinical experience as a house officer, I shifted my focus to understanding how inflammation and metabolism are coordinated on an organismal level.  My work in Dr. Medzhitov's laboratory led to the discovery that different inflammatory states are coordinated with different metabolic programs, an important insight into the pathogenesis of many inflammatory diseases.  I joined the faculty as Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine (Rheumatology) in August 2017 and the Immunobiology faculty in July 2019.My lab is generally interested in trying to understand how the environment interacts with the host to affect disease trajectories. We utilize a broad range of techniques spanning disciplines spanning physiology, metabolism, inflammation, neurobiology, and immunology coupled with patient samples. On-going interests:1. Identifying and dissecting environmental determinants of inflammatory diseases. 2. Understanding inflammatory physiology3. Understanding placebo and nocebo physiology.4. Understanding the "moonlighting" functions of the immune system.5. Understanding energy allocation in host defense. (Collaboration with Dr. Rachel Perry)6. Understanding the relationship between cell death and inflammation. (Collaboration with Dr. Aaron Ring)In the clinic, I see patients with inflammatory conditions, many of the times with no clear diagnosis, as well as patients with rheumatologic diseases.