Lab Members
Natividad Roberto Fuentes Jr., Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor
NRFuentes@MDAnderson.org
Dr. Natividad “Rob” Fuentes Jr. is an assistant professor in Cancer Biology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is from Alice, Texas, a small town in South Texas. He completed his doctoral and postdoctoral training at Texas A&M University under the mentorship of Dr. Robert S. Chapkin. There, his work centered around elucidating the underlying cellular mechanisms of how diet impacts disease processes. He then completed the translational-focused CPRIT-TRIUMPH postdoctoral training program with Dr. Cullen M. Taniguchi at MD Anderson where he pursued research to define the role of hypoxia-mediated lipid signaling in the pancreatic tumor microenvironment (TME). Currently, his lab employs dietary intervention strategies, lipid biochemistry, advanced fluorescent microscopy, membrane biophysics and lipidomics techniques to characterize how nanoscale changes to lipids and proteins in the TME influence immunosuppression and other disease processes. The goal of his work is to unravel the cellular and molecular basis of membrane based therapeutic resistance mechanisms in cancer to lay the groundwork for development of novel preventive and/or therapeutic strategies that target membrane spatial dynamics.
He is currently a faculty member in the MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in both the Cancer Biology and Molecular and Translational Biology (MTB) programs. He is currently accepting graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Dr. Fuentes enjoys spending time with his family, indulging in some good Texas BBQ and swing dancing to Texas country music.
Find Dr. Fuentes on Google Scholar
View Dr. Fuentes's graduate school faculty profile
Follow Dr. Fuentes on X (formerly Twitter): @RobFuentesPhD
Alejandra Carmona
Research Assistant I
Alejandra Carmona graduated with her B.S. in biology from University of Houston-Downtown in 2021. She first joined MD Anderson as a postbaccalaureate trainee in Genetics where she gained experience in mouse handling, tissue culture and molecular biology techniques. Alejandra is excited to continue learning and to further contribute to cancer research in the Fuentes Lab. During her free time, she enjoys traveling, trying new cuisines and spending time with her family and pets.
Sarah Ghalayini
M.D./Ph.D. Student
Sarah Ghalayini is an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Medical Scientist Training Program. She is an aspiring physician-scientist who moved to Texas following graduation from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2020. With previous research experiences in the natural sciences and engineering at Georgia Tech, Emory University and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, her interdisciplinary background has served as a foundation for her aspirations to bridge science and medicine. Sarah hopes to pursue a career in radiation oncology with scientific interests in cancer biology, tumor immunology and metabolism. She began her Ph.D. working with Dr. Fuentes’s former mentor, Dr. Cullen Taniguchi, and is now a proud Ph.D. student co-advised by Dr. Rob Fuentes and Dr. Albert Koong.
Michella Goldwater
Administrative Assistant
Michella Goldwater received her bachelor’s in health care administration from Sam Houston State University in 2022. She supports multiple faculty and educational trainees with all administrative duties.
Dalia Gomez
Research Assistant II
Dalia Gomez graduated with her B.S. in biology and a minor in chemistry from University of Houston-Downtown in 2021. She gained experience working with the model organisms Drosophila melanogaster and Mus musculus during her undergraduate studies and at Baylor College of Medicine in the Texas Medical Center, respectively. Dalia is very passionate about patient care and using her skills to further contribute to scientific research. She was the first hire in the Fuentes Lab where she works on mouse colony management, ordering supplies for the lab and learning cell culture techniques.