About

I was born and raised in Syracuse, NY and began my career at SUNY Upstate Medical University in 2009 as a research assistant in the Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology. I joined the lab of Professor Mehdi Mollapour in the Dept. of Urology in 2013 following his arrival at SUNY Upstate, and my research contributed to understanding regulatory signaling and post-translational modification of the molecular chaperone Hsp90. Under his mentorship, I defended a doctoral thesis describing the function of the tumor suppressor Folliculin, which acts as a specific endogenous inhibitor of Lactate Dehydrogenase A, thereby regulating the Warburg shift in cancer. My current research interests include the role of TRAP1 in the control of mitochondrial metabolism and the mechanisms underlying the de-regulation of metabolism in cancer.