Olivia is a PhD student in the Molecular Cell Biology & Genetics program who is doing her graduate work in the Pharmacology & Physiology department. Olivia earned her BS in biology at The College of New Jersey in 2019, where she did research on the role of environmental pressure in three spine stickleback morphology. She then spent two years working as a research assistant at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research, studying the role of polyamines in the tumor microenvironment.

In the Romano lab, Olivia's project is centered around understanding targeted therapies and mechanisms of resistance in cancers with mutations in the MAPK pathway, specifically, loss of the tumor suppressor NF1. Olivia's work involves in vitro and in vivo models of melanoma and ovarian carcinoma. She is interested in the molecular changes that occur as cancer cells acquire resistance, as well as the role that senescence has in cancer.

Lindsay is a PhD student in the Microbiology & Immunology program completing her research in Dr. Gabriele Romano's lab in the Pharmacology & Physiology department. After completing her bachelor's degree in biotechnology at Penn State, she joined Drexel's College of Medicine to study onco-immunology in Dr. Romano's lab.

Currently, she is researching the interplay between drug resistance and melanoma in patients with HIV and how a "cold" tumor microenvironment contributes to cancer drug resistance. She has set up in vitro and in vivo models of cancer and HIV co-morbidity, with the final aim to detect novel treatment strategies for people living with HIV who develop cancer.

Binh is a PhD student in the Pharmacology & Physiology program. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, in 2011 with a BA in biological sciences and a minor in theater arts. She then worked at several institutions like MGH, Umass Med, and Charles River Discovery before joining Synlogic, where she contributed to the pre-clinical pharmacology work for 3 INDs, with 2 still in clinical trials. After that experience, she moved on to Unum Therapeutics to work on T cell therapies for multiple myeloma and HER2 targeting and TNBC therapies. Before joining Drexel, she worked at Senda Biosciences to start their pre-clinical operations and work on LNP/plant-derived vesicle/ bacterial minicell drug delivery and then to Ensoma to work on adenovirus delivered in vivo gene therapies.

Binh currently works on a project to exploit biomimetic nanoparticle-mediated delivery of immunomodulating nucleic acids as a strategy to anticipate melanoma drug resistance.

Dr. Urquiza is a postdoctoral researcher in the Romano lab. He earned his PhD in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine from BioGUNE (Spain) in 2018, focusing on developing treatments for Congenital Erythropoietic Porphyria (CEP) and drug discovery for rare diseases. An expert in high-throughput drug screening, he holds two international patents, has first-author publications in Science Translational Medicine and participated in the recognition of Ciclopirox for CEP treatment by the EMA and FDA.

His career includes research visits at the University of Medicine in Bordeaux (France) and a postdoctoral position at Rutgers University (USA), where he studied mitochondrial inorganic polyphosphate roles in aging and neurodegenerative diseases. In 2021, he joined the University of Almería and Torrecardenas University Hospital (Spain) to conduct pioneering research on colorectal cancer (CRC), developing a predictive diagnostic model for personalized medicine using NMR and omics technologies.

Currently, Dr. Urquiza is at Dr. Romano’s lab, researching drug resistance in melanoma among HIV patients to discover new treatment strategies, demonstrating his commitment to advancing therapeutic options and improving clinical outcomes for patients with complex diseases.

Dr. Yoon is a visiting professor in Dr. Romano’s lab. She received her MS in Pharmacology from the College of Medicine at Jeonbuk National University and a BA in Pharmacy from SungKyunKwan University, South Korea. In 2011, Dr. Yoon completed her PharmD from Howard University and has been a professor in the College of Pharmacy at Gyeongsang National University, South Korea since 2012.

Her research interests are at the intersection of molecular mechanisms of ER stress-mediated response and cisplatin resistance in ovarian cancer. She is currently developing cell lines and animal models to identify novel biomarkers that can aid in the treatment of platinum-resistant ovarian cancer patients.

Pearl Diabene is an undergraduate student and a biological sciences major on the pre-med track at Drexel University. She first joined the Romano Lab in June 2022 as a student in the STAR (Students Tackling Advanced Research) Scholars Program. Her STAR Scholars project focused on Gateway Cloning the Firefly Luc2 gene into lentiviral destination vectors. Pearl has continued to work in the lab as a research assistant exploring her interest in the field of oncology while supporting the team's projects.