Mohammad Minhajuddin, PhD

Associate Research Professor 

The main focus of my work is the identification and characterization of molecular pathways that control the survival of human leukemia stem cells. Drawing on many years of experience as a molecular biologist, I have developed methods to target pathways in primary human Leukemia Stem Cell (LSC) populations.   

Of particular interest are mechanisms controlling energy metabolism and oxidative states, as these key properties are central to the biology of both normal and malignant hematopoietic stem cells. Recent data indicate that LSCs uniquely regulate energy metabolism and that therapeutic strategies may be evolved to target such properties.

Sweta Patel, PhD

Postdoctoral Scholar

Sweta received her Bachelors in Pharmacy and Masters in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology from India. During her Masters, Sweta showed that silver nanoparticle from pomegranate peel extract had cytotoxic effect on cervical cancer cells. After graduating with a Masters in 2016, Sweta moved to the US to pursue a PhD in Dr. Rob Welner’s Lab at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During her PhD, she worked on identifying the metabolic and transcriptional role of STAT3 mediating drug persistence in chronic myeloid leukemia stem cells. In 2021, Sweta joined as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Craig Jordan's and Dr. Eric Pietras' labs and will be focusing on identifying metabolic targets to inhibit the progression from clonal hematopoiesis to acute myeloid leukemia. Sweta plans to stay in academia as a researcher upon completion of her postdoctoral training.

Outside of the lab, Sweta enjoys water-related activities, hiking, volunteering at dog shelters, learning new things and celebrating Indian festivals.

Shanshan Pei, PhD

Adjunct Professor

I am fascinated by the potential of precision medicine in cancer, particularly for leukemia. Decades of work in the field have extended our understanding of leukemia biology with regard to genetics, epigenetics, and metabolism, and we now have many pieces to the puzzle. Our ability to uncover more pieces is further enabled by a recent outburst of powerful omics techniques and data analysis tools. Thus, we now have a unique opportunity to comprehensively dissect both intra- and inter- AML patient heterogeneity.  We can then connect these data to their individual therapeutic response in the clinic. This intersection of research, clinic, and data science is an exciting space for precision drug discovery in AML. 

In this context, I am particularly interested in utilizing multi-omic approaches at both population and single-cell levels to pinpoint key biological differences between therapy responders and non-responders in current clinical trials. I am also interested in using drug/genetic screens in ex vivo and in vivo settings to identify novel therapies that can target mechanisms of resistance in non-responders. Finally, in line with my overall fascination of precision medicine, I am interested in working with physicians, bench scientists and data scientists to build databases and analysis pipelines for implementing data-driven precision medicine in the near future.

My current work is focused on characterizing the heterogeneity of leukemia stem cells (LSCs) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients. Specifically, my interest is to dissect intra-patient AML heterogeneity, which is the main driver of therapeutic relapse. Through deeper understanding of LSC heterogeneity at the genetic, epigenetic, metabolic and developmental levels, we can lay the groundwork for precision medicine designed to eliminate relapse responses in AML patients with evident LSC heterogeneity. In addition to bench-based functional studies, I’m also interested in leveraging multi-omic and single cell bioinformatic techniques to address disease heterogeneity. Combining powerful bioinformatic approaches with in vitro and in vivo functional studies on the bench will provide unprecedented resolution of the biological mechanisms driving leukemogenesis in patients and therapeutic resistance in the clinic.

Brett Stevens, PhD 

Associate Research Professor

My research explores energy metabolism of leukemia stem cells as an attractive candidate for the development of therapies. This work includes multiple genetic and pharmacologic approaches to target these cells. Specifically, my current focus is on the pre-clinical development and progression of BCL-2 inhibiting agents and understanding of biochemical pathways involved in metabolism in both Acute Myelogenous Leukemia and Myelodysplastic Syndromes.

Amanda Winters, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor, Pediatrics

I am a Pediatric Oncologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado and am junior faculty in the Jordan lab. My project involves the characterization of chemo-resistant cell populations in acute myeloid leukemias (AML), with the ultimate goal of identifying effective targeted therapies for residual disease. An additional goal of my research is to develop more sensitive and specific assays for the detection of minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients with no clinically apparent disease.

Currently, I am working with adult and pediatric primary AML samples, which I am analyzing with mass cytometry and with targeted sequencing of a panel of AML-associated genes. Mass cytometry allows us to look at >20 cell surface markers and intracellular phosphorylated signaling proteins simultaneously, which in turn allows us to identify individual subpopulations within an AML sample and track their relative abundances during initial chemotherapy. We can then isolate the subpopulations which are most resistant to standard chemotherapies and can study their genetic mutational profiles and sensitivities to targeted drug therapies. We can also use the genotypic information to identify candidate mutations for MRD monitoring via droplet digital PCR, with the goal of detecting molecular evidence of disease at earlier timepoints prior to clinical relapse.