Xue Zeng, MD
Xue 'Lucy' Zeng was a member of the Delgoffe lab from 2015-2017 as a Scholar from Tsinghua University in China.
Lucy had several projects in the laboratory focused on altering the metabolism of tumor cells and bolstering mitochondrial activity in T cells. Lucy is now in medical residency in China.
Yiyang Wang, MD
Yiyang "Steve" Wang was a student of the Experimental Class of Medicine at Tsinghua University (China). As part of his 8-year MD program, he joined the lab in 2017 to receive scientific research training. He had a great interest in oncology and cardiovascular diseases. Steve's project mainly focused on the establishment of a murine CAR T immunotherapy model. Steve has since returned to Tsinghua University to complete his medical studies.
Nicole Scharping, PhD
Nicole Scharping was a graduate student in the University of Pittsburgh Immunology Graduate Program, who joined the lab in 2015. Her project centered on the metabolic defects of tumor-infiltrating cytotoxic T cells and uncovering the basic processes that underlie T cell exhaustion.
Nicole is now a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Ananda Goldrath’s lab at UCSD.
Ashley Menk, MS
Ashley Menk was the laboratory manager of the Delgoffe Lab until 2021. She received her BS from the University of Pittsburgh in 2015 and joined the lab that summer.
As Ashley ran the Seahorse Bioanalyzer, she had many and varied projects. However, her main focus was on the pathways that are involved in T cell metabolic reprogramming.
Ashley is now an Associate Scientist at Novasenta.
Madeleine Stout, BS
Madeleine Stout was a graduate student in the University of Pittsburgh’s Biomedical Master’s Program. She joined the Delgoffe lab in 2019. Madeleine’s project was focused on how adoptive cell therapy can mitigate exhaustion of tumor-infiltrating T-cells in the nutrient deficient tumor microenvironment.
Madeleine is now in medical school at the University of Pittsburgh.
McLane Watson, PhD
McLane (Mac) Watson was a graduate student part of the Immunology program at the University of Pittsburgh. Mac joined the Delgoffe lab May 2017 and studied the utilization of lactate by regulatory T cells as an energy source in the tumor microenvironment. After graduation in Dec 2021 with a manuscript in Nature (!) Mac began his postdoc in Dr. Russel Jones’ lab at the Van Andel institute.
Mary Philbin, BS
Mary Philbin was a Research Specialist in the Delgoffe lab. She joined the lab in 2020 and worked on a project involving comparing the success rates of combination versus bispecific reagent immunologic therapies. Mary is now a Medical Assistant and is applying to PA school.
Konstantinos Lontos, MD, PhD
Konstantinos (Dinos) Lontos was a Hematology/Oncology fellow and a graduate student at the Institute for Clinical Research Education (ICRE) of the University of Pittsburgh. Dinos joined the lab in 2018 and worked to develop new models for studying CAR-T cells in solid tumors as well as studied ways to improve CAR-T cell function.
Dinos is now a Stem Cell Transplantation & Cellular Therapy Fellow at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Yupeng Wang
Yupeng “Jeremy” Wang was a student of the Experimental Class of Medicine at Tsinghua University, China. He joined the lab for scientific research training as part of his 8-year MD program. He studied metabolic aspects of T cells functioning in the tumor microenviroment and metabolic adjustment for improvement of cancer immunotherapy.
Jeremy has now returned to Tsinghua University to finish his medical studies.
Paolo Vignali, PhD
Paolo Vignali is a University of Pittsburgh MD/PhD candidate who joined the lab and the PMI program in 2018. Paolo studied the metabolic adaptations of immune cell subtypes and tumor cells which confer functional advantages in the characteristically nutrient-dearth tumor microenvironment with significant interest in novel drug discovery and treatment protocols to augment current immunotherapeutic efforts.
Paolo has finished his MD/PhD training and is now preparing for medical residency in dermatology at Northwestern.
Jessica Jana, BSE
Jessica Jana was a lab tech in the Delgoffe lab from 2020-2022. During her time in the Delgoffe lab she focused on improving adoptive cell therapy by reengineering transferred T cells to be more metabolically competitive in the tumor microenvironment.
Jess has since joined the Program in Microbiology and Immunology (PMI) at Pitt as a graduate student.
Kristin DePeaux, PhD
Kristin DePeaux, PhD was a PMI graduate student in the Delgoffe Lab from 2018-2024. In 2014 she received her B.S. in biochemistry from Stonehill College in North Easton, MA. After undergrad she worked at the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where she became interested in cancer immunology. Kristin worked on oncolytic viruses and their ability to deliver immunomodulators into tumors. She is now a postdoc at Princeton with Dr. Lydia Lynch.
Victoria Dean
Victoria Dean was a lab tech in the Delgoffe lab from 2022-2024. In 2022, she graduated from West Virginia University with a BS in Biomedical Engineering and a minor in Medical Humanities and Health Studies. Her undergraduate capstone and previous area of research focused on using microfluidic technology to develop lipid-based RNA delivery vehicles for the treatment of diabetes. She is now a medical student at WVU.