Lab Members
Aria Vaishnavi, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
CPRIT Scholar of Cancer Research
Assistant Professor
AVaishnavi1@MDAnderson.org
Follow Dr. Vaishnavi on Twitter: @DrAriaV
Aria Vaishnavi, Ph.D., is a cancer biologist who specializes in signal transduction, targeted therapeutics and mouse models of human cancer. Dr. Vaishnavi obtained her bachelor's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Honor’s College at Washington State University in 2007. She completed her doctoral studies in cancer biology at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Doebele. Here, she worked on investigating the biology and targeted therapeutic intervention of fusion kinases in lung cancer. Dr. Vaishnavi did her postdoctoral training with Dr. Martin McMahon at the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute, where her work was focused on mouse models of human lung and pancreatic cancer. She was recruited as a CPRIT scholar of Cancer Research and an assistant professor in the department of Cancer Biology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2022. She is currently a faculty member in MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in both the Cancer Biology and Therapeutics and Pharmacology (TAP) programs, and she is currently accepting graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Research Staff
Shiming Jiang, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
SJiang2@MDAnderson.org
Shiming Jiang graduated with his Ph.D. in Biomedical Science fromthe University of Heidelberg at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) with Dr. Uwe Haberkorn in 2001. He went on to complete his DOD-funded postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Steffi Oesterreich at Baylor College of Medicine. Here, he studied transcription regulation in breast cancer and went on to be awarded a Career Development Award from the MD Anderson SPORE in breast cancer. Shiming is an experienced veteran with expertise in leveraging mouse genetics to study mechanisms of gene regulation in numerous cancer types. He is now a research scientist in the Vaishnavi Lab, where he is studying different classes of BRAF mutations.
Melanie Angelina Dacheux, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Melanie Dacheux received her Ph.D. in parasitology, cell biology and pathophysiology from the National Museum of Natural History of Paris/Sorbonne University (France) in 2018. She completed her first postdoc at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, in Memphis, where she investigated the role of autotaxin-producing pulmonary stromal cells (an enzyme that generates the bioactive lipid, lysophosphatidic acid) in the development of melanoma to lung metastasis. She joined the Vaishnavi Lab in 2024. Here, she focuses on the third aspect of research that aims to comprehend the molecular pathways underlying environmentally induced lung cancer in never smokers.
Cheng Pei Wu
Research Assistant
Cheng Pei (Gary) Wu moved to the states in 2019 for college. He graduated from UT Austin with a biology degree. He has an identical twin brother called Larry. He likes to listen to music, work out, hike and try out new things. Gary loves science, but is planning to go to medical school in the future.
Monique Richardson
Senior Administrative Assistant
MMRichardson1@MDAnderson.org
Former Lab Members
Kyle Butler, M.S., B.S.
Research Assistant
Tihui Fu, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Bhoomika Muruvekere Lakshmisha, B.S.
M.S. Student
Meng-Jung Wu, B.S.
Research Assistant