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Hani Goodarzi, PhD

Assistant Professor

Biography

Cancer, fundamentally, is a disease of disordered gene expression. Cancer cells rely on deregulated expression of oncogenic and tumor suppressive pathways to initiate and maintain the transformation process. Thus, delineating how cancer cells achieve such pathologic gene expression states is a crucial step towards understanding and ultimately treating cancer as a disease. Towards achieving this goal, my laboratory employs a systems biological and multidisciplinary approach that integrates computational and experimental strategies to identify and characterize key regulatory programs that underlie cancer progression. The systems-level frameworks implemented in our lab ensure a truly unbiased and systematic approach to studying this key biological challenge. Such bottom-up and agnostic approaches are crucial for discovering pathways that fall outside of our prior knowledge of regulatory interactions and would otherwise remain hidden in a top-down reductionist framework.

Education & Training

  • 2016-present: Assistant Professor. Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Department of Urology, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
  • 2012-2016: Postdoctoral Fellow in Cancer Genomics. Laboratory of Systems Cancer Biology at Rockefeller University.
  • 2010-2012: Postdoctoral Associate in Genomics. Princeton/Columbia University.
  • 2010: PhD, Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
    • Thesis Title: Experimental and Computational Approaches for Genetic Dissection of Complex Phenotypes
  • 2006: BS, Biotechnology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Awards & Honors

  • 2018: UCSF Catalyst Award
  • 2018: New Directions in Prostate Cancer Research Award
  • 2017: AAAS Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer Research Award
  • 2017: AACR NextGen Award for Transformative Cancer Research
  • 2017: Sidney Kimmel Cancer Foundation Scholar Award
  • 2015: Blavatnik Regional Award Winner for Life Sciences
  • 2015: Tri-Institutional Breakout Prize for Junior Investigators
  • 2015: NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00)
  • 2014: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award
  • 2014: RUCCTS/CDDS/SCBN Pilot Project Award
  • 2012: Anderson Cancer Center Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • 2006: William G. Bowen Merit Fellowship
  • 2005: Top undergraduate student in the Department of Biotechnology (University of Tehran)
  • 2004: Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technology Fellowship, Iran
  • 2002: University of Tehran Fellowship, Iran
  • 2002: Presidential Award for Exceptional Talents, Iran
  • 2002: Silver medal, The 13th International Biology Olympiad, Latvia
  • 2001: Gold medal in the 4th National Biology Olympiad in Tehran, Iran
  • 2001: Member, Young Scholar’s Club (Tehran, Iran)