Lab Members

Dr. Jelani Zarif

Principal Investigator

Hometown – Chicago, IL

Favorite Book – Between the World and me

Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Dr. Donald Coffey

Fan Shen, M.B.B.S., M.S.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Hometown – Guangzhou, China

Favorite Book – Sophie’s World

Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Nikola Tesla

Kenneth Adusei

Ph.D. Candidate

Hometown- Hampton, VA 
Favorite Book – My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult.
Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Dr. Rosalind Franklin 

Alex Lee

Ph.D. Candidate

Hometown – Honolulu, HI
Favorite book – The Emperor of All Maladies. 
Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Dr. Sidney Farber

Debebe Theodros

M.D. / Ph.D. candidate

Immunology Graduate program

Hometown – Tough given all the travel but I like to claim Los Angeles

Favorite Book – Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Scientists I’d invite to dinner: Drs. Albert Einstein, Abraham Wald, Richard Feynman, Bertrand Russell, and Max Planck

Thomas Nirschl

Ph.D. Candidate

Pathobiology Graduate Program

Hometown is – Herndon, Virginia

Favorite book – Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Dr. James P. Allison

Monali Praharaj, M.S.

Ph.D. Candidate

Pathobiology Graduate program

Hometown – Odisha and Mumbai, India

Favorite Book – Wings of Fire: An Autobiography of A P J Abdul Kalam

Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Drs. Saumya Swaminathan, Marie Curie and James P. Allison.

Xiaoxu Wang, M.S.

Ph.D. Candidate

Immunology Graduate program

Hometown – Zibo – Shandong Province, China

Favorite Book – Journey Under the Midnight Sun

Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi

Raekwon Williams

Ingenuity ScholaR

Raekwon is a Senior Baltimore Polytechnic HS and an Ingenuity Scholar. 

Hometown – Baltimore, MD

Favorite Book – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Dr. John Carpten

Anna Smith

Admininstrator

Hometown – Baltimore, MD

Favorite Book – The other Wes Moore

Scientist I’d invite to dinner – Dr. Mae C. Jemison

Collaborators

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

University of California - San Diego
Moores Cancer Center

Compugen, LLC.

Zarif Lab Alumni

Dr. Margueritta El Asmar, M.D. is now an Assistant Professor in Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital!

Dr. Debebe Theodros completed his M.D./Ph.D. training and is now a Resident Physician at Stanford health in Neurosurgery!