Lab Members

Joseph McCarty, Ph.D.
Principal investigator

Joseph McCarty, Ph.D., came to MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2005 as an assistant professor in Cancer Biology. In 2013 he took a position as associate professor in Neurosurgery to expound upon his interest in brain tumor research and was promoted to professor in 2018. He currently serves as the Principal Investigator for a NIH/NINDS funded project "Deciphering Mechanisms of Tumor Cell Invasion in Glioblastoma" and was one of the 2014 Developmental Research Project recipients for the Brain Cancer SPORE, through which he is researching the effects of "Targeting Spinophilin in Glioblastoma."

In 2006 Dr. McCarty was awarded the New Scholar Award in Aging from the Ellison Medical Foundation and in 2008 the Career Development Award from MD Anderson Cancer Center Brain Cancer SPORE under the guidance of Principal Investigator W.K. Alfred Yung, M.D. Dr. McCarty is also a member of the Brain Tumor Research Program at MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Center for Stem Cell and Development Biology and the Cancer Metastasis Research Center.

Zhihua (Jenny) Chen, M.D., M.S.
Research Investigator

Zhihua Chen received her master's degree in immunology from the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology and M.D. from the Third Military Medical University in China. From 2003-2009, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Her research focused on understanding the molecular mechanism of extracellular matrix molecules related to tumor invasion and metastasis. Prior to joining the McCarty Laboratory in 2014, she was as a research associate at the Institute of Molecular Medicine - UTHealth Science Center at Houston (2009-2014), where she was involved in projects related to neurodegenerative disorders. In particular, she used genetic and molecular approaches in Drosophila and cell culture systems to discover the disease-causative genes in Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

John Morales, B.S. 
Laboratory Coordinator

John Morales received his bachelor's degree in biochemistry from The University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2013 as a Senior Research Assistant in the McCarty Lab, John worked as a research assistant for 11 years at The University of Texas in the Rick Wetsel, Ph.D., Immunology Lab.

Arpan De, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Arpan De received his bachelor and master of science degrees in microbiology from University of Calcutta, India, and worked on a research project funded by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India to investigate novel coordination metal complexes as potential anti-leishmanial agents. He moved to Bowling Green State University, Ohio, where he received his master’s degree in biological sciences in 2015 with research focus on understanding the role of rho-family guanosine triphosphatase effectors in filopodia dynamics. Arpan earned his Ph.D. in biological sciences from Bowling Green State University in 2019 where his graduate research focused on exploring circadian clock regulation of epithelial-mesenchymal and mesenchymal-epithelial transitions in glioma and breast cancer cells. He joined the McCarty lab in October 2019.

Kerry Roby, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Roby received his Bachelor of Science in biology from Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena. Kerry Received his Ph.D. in cancer biology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2021, where his graduate work focused on understanding the response of the tumor microenvironment to nutrient deprivation or sheer stress. Kerry joined the McCarty Lab in March 2021, and his current research focuses on understanding the molecular and functional properties of perivascular astrocyte and their contributions to blood brain barrier development and in cancer progression.

Sumod Sebastian, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Sebastian received his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in biotechnology from Bangalore University, India. He received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Texas Woman's University in 2019 where his dissertation research was focused on drug release kinetics and blood-brain barrier crossing efficacy of polymer encapsulated magnetic nanocarriers. Sumod joined the McCarty Laboratory in February 2020. His current research focuses on understanding the roles of endothelial transporter proteins and vascular basement membrane proteins in maintaining blood-brain barrier integrity during development, physiology and cancer. 

Zahra Nassiri Toosi, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Toosi received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Her dissertation research was focused on investigating the pharmacokinetic parameters of sublingual versus oral tacrolimus administration in liver transparent recipients. After moving to the U.S., she joined the Molecular and Cell Biology graduate program at Georgia Institute of Technology and received a Ph.D. in the spring of 2021. Dr. Toosi's doctoral research was centered on studying the regulatory roles of post-translational modifications on G-protein signaling systems. Using yeast as a model organism, she investigated the structural and functional effects of multi-site phosphorylation on the intrinsically disordered N-terminal tail of the G-protein gamma subunit in the G-protein signaling system. In June 2021, she joined the McCarty Laboratory. 

Sehee Kim, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Kim received her master's and doctoral degrees in biomedical science from Kyung Hee University, South Korea. Her research focused on neuron survival mechanisms in diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases (Parkinson’s disease, seizures, and stroke). She moved to The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston (UTHealth) in 2019, where her primary research was focused on understanding the pathologic mechanisms of stress response in stroke with diabetic comorbidity. Dr. Kim was also involved in the study of brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). She joined the McCarty Lab in April 2022.

Tao Wang, M.D., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Wang received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Fudan University in 2018. He has been working as an attending neurosurgeon in China for about 10 years. Dr. Wang’s research has been focused on USP8 mutations in Cushing’s disease and GPR68 in ischemic stroke. With a strong interest in glioblastoma research, Dr. Wang joined the McCarty Lab in June 2023. 

Jack Kelly, M.S.
Research Assistant II

Jack Kelly received his bachelor's in biomedical science from Texas A&M University. While at Texas A&M, Jack worked as an undergraduate research assistant at Texas A&M's Institute for Regenerative Medicine in the Darwin Prockop, M.D., Ph.D., lab. He collected data on the isolation and purification of exosomes from mesenchymal stem cells. Jack also went on to work in the Fei Liu, Ph.D., lab where he collected data on the use of extracellular vesicle mimics made from iPS cell-derived mesenchymal stem cells to improve treatment of metastatic prostate cancer in mouse models. Jack went on to complete his Master of Science in medical science at the University of North Texas Health Science Center prior to joining the McCarty Lab in August 2021. 

Santiago A. Forero
Senior Research Assistant

Santiago A. Forero received his bachelor’s degree in biomedical sciences from Texas A&M University, where he began his research as an undergraduate researcher in the Behavioral Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics Lab of Dr. Gil Rosenthal. He went on to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees at Cornell University as part of Dr. Alex Ophir’s neuroethology lab, where his research focused on uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying social behavior in the socially monogamous prairie vole. Santiago joined the McCarty Lab in January 2024 and will contribute to the lab’s ongoing research of characterizing neurovascular development and physiology. 

Sumit Gautham, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Sumit Gautham received his Bachelor of Science in pharmacy from Kathmandu University, Nepal in 2013. He received his master’s degree in biological chemistry from the University of Stavanger, Norway in 2017. During his master’s degree, he did his thesis research on the analysis of cellular events in a cell model for neurodegenerative diseases involving mitochondrial damage.  He recently received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Houston in 2023. His dissertation research was focused on studying the mechanism of Dopamine 2-like receptor (D2R) signaling in the blood-brain barrier that regulates male courtship in Drosophila melanogaster. He investigated whether G protein-dependent or G protein-independent signaling pathway downstream of D2R is important for male courtship regulation. With a strong interest in studying the signaling processes in the brain that regulate various diseases (cancer) pathophysiology, he applied for the McCarty Lab.