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Lab Members

Soma Sengupta, MD, PhD, FRCP

Soma completed her MD-PhD at the University of Cambridge, U.K. She received Membership in the Royal College of Physicians (U.K.) before moving to the U.S. for an internship in medicine; residency in Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center-Harvard; and clinical and research fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Soma is board certified in Neurology and Neuro-Oncology and recently elected (2020) a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP). 

Soma’s Post-doctoral research training included a fellowship at Yale with Prof. Carolyn Slayman (deceased); training in immunology research at the Cambridge Institute of Medical research (U.K.) with Dr. Paul Lehner; and training in pediatric brain tumor research with Drs. Scott Pomeroy at Boston Children’s Hospital and Frances Jensen (currently Chair, Dept. Neurology, Univ. of Pennsylvania).

Soma was an attending at BIDMC-Harvard in neuro-oncology before moving to Emory Univ. and the Winship Cancer Institute. She has a long-standing research interest in membrane transport proteins and a major part of her lab is studying such proteins as anti-cancer targets as well as their role in development of disparate cancers. Clinically, Soma manages adult brain tumors and adult survivors of pediatric brain cancers. She has a strong clinical interest in investigator-initiated trials, to bring much needed new treatments for these patient populations.

LinkedIn: Soma Sengupta LinkedIn

Daniel Pomeranz Krummel, PhD

Daniel completed his PhD at Yale under Prof. Sid Altman (Nobel in Chemistry, 1989). He pursued postgraduate training in x-ray crystallography of large macromolecular complexes at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K. where he worked with Dr. Kiyoshi Nagai (deceased), with whom he collaborated to determine the first structure of a small nuclear RNA-protein complex (Pomeranz Krummel et al. Nature, 2009). He was most recently a faculty member at Emory Univ. at the Winship Cancer Institute before joining the Univ. Cincinnati (July 2019). Daniel has a long-standing research interest in gene expression mechanisms and collaborates closely with Dr. Sengupta in research on membrane transport proteins in cancer development and as anti-cancer targets.

LinkedIn: Daniel Pomeranz Krummel LinkedIn

debanjan

Debanjan Bhattacharya, PhD

Instructor

Debanjan completed his doctoral training in India at the University of Calcutta and a Post-doctoral Fellowship at the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. Debanjan has a long-standing interest in pediatric and adult brain tumors. He has particular interest in application of various murine models to study molecular neuro-oncology and drug efficacy.

LinkedIn: Debanjan Bhattacharya LinkedIn

Rohan Rao

Rohan Rao, BS

Medical Student

Rohan is a second year medical student at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. He is interested in a multi-disciplinary approach to developing and delivering targeted therapeutics to a variety of brain tumors.  

Rohan received the following three awards for his research under the guidance of Dr. Sengupta and Dr. Pomeranz Krummel:
-American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA) Jack & Fay Netchin Medical Student Summer Fellowship
-American Academy of Neurology Medical Student Research Scholarship
-University of Cincinnati Medical Student Summer Research Program Fellowship

Kamden Toukam

Kamden Toukam, Ph.D.

Research Associate; Laboratory Manager

Kamdem did his PhD at the University of Bochum, Germany, developing chimeric vaccine proteins to target hidden epitopes. As postdoc in Dr. John C. Morris Lab at the University of Cincinnati, Kamdem focused on immune check point modulation to enhance anti-cancer immune responses, and on tumor-targeted drug delivery using fusion proteins. In Sengupta/Krummel Lab, Kamdem contributes in studies targeting membrane transport proteins to treat cancers.

Vaibhavkumar Gawali

Vaibhavkumar Gawali, Ph.D.

Research Scientist

Vaibhavkumar graduated from the International PhD program- Molecular Drug Targets (MolTag) hosted by the Medical, Technical and University of Vienna, Austria. His expertise includes ion channels research focusing on their biophysical characterization, role in disease biology and molecular pharmacology using manual and automated patch-clamp electrophysiology. His postdoctoral work at the University of Cincinnati focused on characterization of ion channels in T lymphocytes in regulation of calcium signaling and their role in resistance mechanism of immunotherapy of cancer. He has particular interest in discovery and development of new therapies targeting ion channels.

Abigail Koehler

Abigail Koehler, BS

Clinical Research Professional

Abby assists Dr. Sengupta in initiating novel clinical trials for cancer patients. Additionally, she works in the Brain Tumor Center’s Neuro-Oncology clinic as a cognitive tester. Abby is passionate about oncology and patient advocacy, and her future goal is to attend medical school.

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Department of
Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine

Stetson Building Suite 2300
260 Stetson Street
Cincinnati, OH 45267-0525

Mail Location: 0525
Academic Phone: 513-558-2968
Academic Fax: 513-558-4887
Academic Email: neurology@uc.edu

Clinic Phone: 513-475-8730
Clinic Fax: 513-475-8033