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Our Team

The Center for Precision Disease Modeling at the University of Maryland Medical School consists of five major sections. Each section comprises clinicians and scientists who are exceptionally specialized and well experienced for our aims. Our team is highly interactive across the sections, enabling us to provide the best solution in generating Precision Disease Models for human diseases.

EmailCPDM@som.umaryland.edu


Leadership

Zhe Han, PhD

Zhe ‘Zion’ Han, Ph.D.

Center Director
Section Leader, Disease Modeling Unit
Section Leader, Coordination Section
Member, Steering Committee

Associate Professor, Department of Medicine,
University of Maryland School of Medicine
670 West Baltimore St., Baltimore, MD 21201, USA

Charles Hong, MD, PhD

Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD

Center Associate Director
Section Co-leader, Disease Modeling Unit
Member, Steering Committee
Preclinical Section

Director of Cardiology Research
Melvin Sharoky Professor of Medicine

University of Maryland School of Medicine
670 West Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21201


Coordination Section

Zhe Han, PhD

Zhe ‘Zion’ Han, Ph.D.

Zhe ‘Zion’ Han, PhD, Section Leader Coordination, is responsible for oversight and coordination of the numerous research pipeline projects and to develop and establish communication strategies aimed at building strong relations with the biomedical community, including interaction and collaborative efforts with other initiatives. And, for safeguarding transparency by monitoring and sharing center progress with the community and program staff.

Charles Hong, MD, PhD

Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD

Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD, oversight projects Disease Modeling Unit and Preclinical, oversees center operations, including project, services and finances, aimed to identify and prevent potential issues before they might impact project timelines and/or outcomes. As leadership of the Disease Modeling Unit and Preclinical section, he especially focusses on these. In addition, he contributes to the development of communication strategies to synergize center activities.  

Stephen Davis, MBBS

Stephen N. Davis, MBBS

Stephen N. Davis, MBBS, oversight Resource and Services, oversees center operations, including project, services and finances, aimed to identify and prevent potential issues before they might impact project timelines and/or outcomes. As the leader of the Resource and Service section, he pays special attention to issues related to the CPDM resource and offered services. Further, he contributes to the development of communication strategies to synergize center activities.

Joyce van de Leemput, PhD

Joyce van de Leemput (Rafferty), PhD

Joyce van de Leemput, PhD, Communication and Community Relations, works to integrate efforts across multiple research projects and services in order to maximize coordination among the different center sections. Further, she develops strategies to optimize communication with the biomedical community, collaborations with existing initiatives, and, spearheads tracking and reporting of CPDM activities and services.

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Hangnoh Joseph Lee, PhD

Hangnoh ‘Joseph’ Lee, PhD, oversight projects Bioinformatics, integral to all activities at the Bioinformatics section, he will oversee the center operations with specific focus on the Bioinformatics projects. And, he coordinates bioinformatics support for the Disease Modeling Unit and Preclinical section research projects, and ensures integration of Bioinformatics and Service section efforts towards the center website and online resources. He further supports the coordination section by developing metrics and tools for tracking the impact of CPDM activities on the biomedical community.

 

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Coordination Administrator (TBA)

Coordination Administrator (TBA), assists in efforts to keep research pipeline projects and service delivery on track by developing project timelines and organizing meetings, as well as in assisting with evaluation of center progress and services. And, this person assists in public relations and outreach efforts.

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Finance Administrator (TBA) 

Finance Administrator (TBA), develop and oversee center business operations and finances to ensure the centers' healthy growth towards self-sustainability.


Preclinical Section

Alan Shuldiner

Alan R Shuldiner, MD

Alan R. Shuldiner, MD, Section Leader Preclinical, is responsible for overall coordination and oversight of Preclinical section activities. Further, he is directly involved in center project on developing biomarkers for therapeutics and strategies for preventive care. He provides a great resource of knowledge and experience in moving CPDM findings towards clinical application.

Hongbing Wang, PhD

Hongbing Wang, PhD

Hongbing Wang, PhD, Section co-Leader Preclinical, is responsible for providing section oversight and leads projects related to drug design, drug screening, compound toxicity and safety studies, to which his expertise will be instrumental. Further, he collaborates with Dr. Hong and the Disease Modeling Unit on the high-throughput drug screen projects that use the center-developed precision disease models to develop and identify effective therapeutic compounds.

Charles Hong, MD, PhD

Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD

Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD, supports the other CPDM sections with interpretation of medical records and data. As co-lead of the Disease Modeling Unit, he will also be responsible for close interaction between the Preclinical and Disease Modeling sections. For example, to facilitate the use of CPDM precision disease models in design and execution of targeted treatment and drug screens. In addition, he will apply his expertise in chemical genetics to drug design and develop strategies for biotarget discovery and preventive care.  

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Hangnoh Joseph Lee, PhD

Hangnoh ‘Joseph’ Lee, PhD, bioinformatics expert, supports the Preclinical section with integration of patient medical records and data into patient and precision disease model omics data analysis. He will review data to ensure collected patient genetic/omics data are of sufficient quality, and work with the Preclinical section to interpret data for the initial evaluation of community nominated variants. Further, he supports the section by carrying out the pharmacogenomics analysis based on the targeted therapeutics projects. 

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Coordination Administrator (TBA)

Coordination Administrator (TBA), assists in the acquisition of medical records and patient data as well as administrative duties to facilitate projects and keep them on task.


Bioinformatics Section

Owen R. White, PhD

Owen R. White, PhD

Owen R. White, PhD, Section Leader Bioinformatics, responsible for overseeing all activities of the Bioinformatics section at CPDM. In additional, he will be involved in analyzing GWAS and patient-specific genomic data as well as building the CPDM database. 

 Lynn M. Schriml, PhD

Lynn M. Schriml, PhD

Lynn M. Schriml, PhD, is responsible for the phenotype and disease ontology and annotations. Dr. Schriml's group is focused on the classification and annotation of rare disease and cancer, and is actively engage with the Model Organism Databases to standardize human disease associated with animal models. Dr. Schriml expands these efforts within CPDM by linking human disease phenotypes to their genotypes and to phenotypes in the precision disease models.

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Hangnoh Joseph Lee, PhD

Hangnoh ‘Joseph’ Lee, PhD, is responsible for the analysis of multi-omics data from both human patients and precision disease models, including fly (Drosophila melanogaster) and zebrafish (Danio rerio). He also carries out the initial evaluation of the feasibility of disease modeling of the community nominated variants related to the CPDM offered platforms, in support of the Disease Modeling Unit. Further, he supports the Preclinical section with pharmacogenomics data analysis. He also manages the CPDM website. 


Resource and Service Section

Stephen Davis, MBBS

Stephen N. Davis, MBBS

Stephen N. Davis, MBBS, Section Leader Resource and Service, is responsible for the overall coordination and supervision of all aspects of the center’s Resource and Service section.

Damcott_Coleen

Coleen M Damcott, PhD

Colleen M. Damcott, PhD, Manager Biorepository, provides expertise and oversight to the CPDM biorepository. She oversees storage and quality of the animal and cell disease models, and is further responsible for their documentation and facilitating distribution of the disease models develop at CPDM to the biomedical community. 

Joyce van de Leemput, PhD

Joyce van de Leemput (Rafferty), PhD

Joyce van de Leemput, PhD, Manager Services and Communication, responsible for day-to-day management of the Resource and Service section, coordination with other center section, as well as outreach activities to increase community engagement and communication with the wider biomedical community in guiding them through the center’s disease modeling services and answering enquiries.

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Coordination Administrator (TBA)

Coordination Administrator (TBA), customer communication, public relations, and outreach efforts.

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Finance Administrator (TBA) 

Finance Administrator (TBA), develop/advise on financial planning, and track business operations at the center.  


Disease Modeling Unit

Zhe Han, PhD

Zhe ‘Zion’ Han, Ph.D.

Zhe ‘Zion’ Han, PhD, Section Leader Disease Modeling Unit, is responsible for overseeing all disease modeling projects and activities; on fly (Drosophila), zebrafish (Danio rerio) and human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) platforms with special emphasis on the flies. This includes the evaluation of community nominated genetic disease variants, generation of new precision disease models, development of new biomarkers and phenotypic methods for precision disease models, omics data interpretation (in collaboration with Bioinformatics section) and the development and testing of precision therapeutics in together with the Preclinical section. 

Charles Hong, MD, PhD

Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD

Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD, Section co-Leader Disease Modeling Unit, is responsible for oversight of precision disease modeling projects on the center’s zebrafish and human iPSC platforms. As he contributes to center projects at the Preclinical level as well, he will also facilitate interactions between the Disease Modeling Unit and the Preclinical section in order to develop the most promising approach towards designing and testing precision therapeutics using CPDM precision disease models.

Junyi Zhu, Dr. rer. nat.

Junyi Zhu, Dr. rer. nat., supervises the Drosophila (fly) platform within the Disease Modeling Unit, as such he will oversee and participate in all Drosophila projects on a day-to-day basis. This includes the generation of new precision disease models as well as the development and implementation of phenotypic and functional assays for the Drosophila service project derived from variants nominated by the biomedical community.

 

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Charles ‘Chuck’ H Williams, PhD

Charles ‘Chuck’ H. Williams, PhD, supervises the Danio rerio (zebrafish) platform within the Disease Modeling Unit, as such he will oversee all zebrafish projects on a day-to-day basis and participate in all projects that use zebrafish for human patient-specific genetic modeling.; including, the generation of new precision disease models, and the development and implementation of phenotypic and functional assays for the zebrafish pipeline projects.

Young Wook Chun, PhD

Young Wook Chun, PhD

Young Wook Chun, PhD, supervises the human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) platform withing the Disease Modeling Unit. He oversees and participates in all human iPSC pipeline projects at the CPDM. He is responsible for differentiation of human iPSC into the different disease-relevant cell types, their subsequent characterization, as well as development of assays for phenotypic and functional investigations and their implementation.

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Pei Wen, PhD

Pei Wen, PhD, Research Associate on the Drosophila platform, highly experienced Drosophila geneticist and in using flies to model human diseases, specialized in kidney, heart and blood.

 

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Yunpo Zhao, PhD

Pei Wen, PhD, Research Associate on the Drosophila platform, highly experienced Drosophila geneticist and in using flies to model human diseases, specialized in kidney, heart and blood.

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Jianli Duan, PhD

Jianli Duan, PhD, postdoctoral fellow on the Drosophila platform, experienced Drosophila geneticist, specialized in using CRISPR (expected to join CPDM in June 2020).

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Jin-Gu Lee, PhD

Jin-Gu Lee, PhD, Research Associated on the Drosophila and human iPSC platforms, highly experienced geneticist in using Drosophila and human cell platforms, specialized in using human cell cultures for precision human disease models.