Five fellows selected for 2025 CPRIT grant
The UTHealth Houston Innovation in Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPRIT) recently announced the selection of five 2025 fellows.
The program recruits scholars from diverse disciplines to ask important research questions, apply tools of innovative thinking and leading-edge methods, and engage in transdisciplinary teams.
Mirrah Bashir is a second-year PhD student in the Frigo Lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, where her projects focus on prostate cancer and metabolism.
Bashir holds a bachelor’s in anatomy, developmental and human biology from King’s College London, followed by two years of postbaccalaureate research at Northwestern University investigating microRNAs in white matter injury.
She earned a master’s in applied biosciences and biotechnology from Imperial College London and has professional experience in medical communications in the United Kingdom.
A passionate advocate for science communication, Bahsir launched an online science blog during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to make scientific discoveries more accessible to the public. She’s excited to contribute to innovative strategies for treating and preventing prostate cancer.
Anna DeBruine received her bachelor’s in biomolecular engineering from Milwaukee School of Engineering, with a minor in German studies. She is currently a PhD student at MD Anderson UTHealth Houston Graduate School, with a primary affiliation in the Therapeutics and Pharmacology Program and a secondary affiliation in the Cancer Biology Program.
DeBruine’s research advisor is Vihang Narkar, PhD, a trained pharmacologist, metabolic researcher, and professor in the Center for Metabolic and Degenerative Diseases at The Brown Foundation Institute for Molecular Medicine and the Prevention of Human Diseases. Narkar is also the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation Distinguished Professor in Cardiovascular Research at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. In his laboratory, DeBruine is investigating the role of nuclear receptors in cancer cachexia development and therapeutic intervention.
Her professional goal is to pursue public health initiatives focusing on cancer prevention.
Yeseul Kim is pursuing a PhD in medical physics. After completing her master’s thesis on prognosis prediction for glioblastoma patients, she moved to the United States in 2023 and joined the team of Eugene Koay, MD, PhD, at MD Anderson UTHealth Houston Graduate School.
Under Koay’s supervision, Kim’s dissertation project focuses on developing and validating change detection algorithms for early cancer detection, metastasis risk stratification, and treatment response prediction in pancreatic cancer.
Merlyn Joseph, PharmD, MS, is a clinical pharmacist specializing in internal medicine with expertise in drug-induced adverse effects and a master’s degree in biomedical informatics. She is a first year PhD student at McWilliams School of Bioinformatics at UTHealth Houston.
Joseph’s research leverages electronic health record data and deep learning models to predict and prevent cancer risks associated with tacrolimus exposure in transplant patients.
By addressing the cancer risks linked to immune suppression, Joseph is dedicated to optimizing cancer prevention and developing personalized treatment strategies to enhance outcomes for this vulnerable population.
Manvi Sharma is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Humam Kadara, PhD, at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She earned her PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she investigated the role of dietary bioactive compounds on modulation of epigenetic mechanisms and gut microbiome in prevention of breast cancer.
Sharma’s current research focuses on understanding the impact of dietary fiber intervention on host-microbiota interactions, specifically on the regulation of the gut microbiota and immune-related events in the therapeutic prevention of lung adenocarcinoma.