Team Members

Neil Vasan, MD, PhD

Neil Vasan, MD, PhD, is a breast oncologist, physician scientist, Assistant Professor of Medicine, and Director of Translational Research in Breast Cancer at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Health. His laboratory (www.vasanlab.org) studies how kinases and other enzymes regulate breast cancer cell signaling, growth, and therapeutic response. 

Neil received his AB/AM from Harvard University and his MD/PhD from Yale University School of Medicine, and he completed clinical training in internal medicine at MGH and in medical oncology at MSKCC. As a postdoctoral fellow, he identified double PIK3CA mutations as an oncogenic alteration, which has gone from bench to bedside as a cancer genomic biomarker. Prior to NYU, he held previous faculty positions at MSKCC and Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

His research has been published in Science, Nature, Cancer Cell, and Cancer Discovery. His research awards include the 2023 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2), Susan G. Komen Career Catalyst Research grant, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) NextGen Star, and American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) Young Physician-Scientist Award. Neil is the Scientific Advisor for PIK3CA Pathbreakers, a breast cancer patient advocacy group. Additionally, he serves as one of 13 standing members of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC), which evaluates data on investigational cancer therapies and makes recommendations to the FDA Commissioner.

Hanna Karvonen, PhD

Hanna received her PhD in cell and molecular biology from Tampere University, Finland, in the lab of Daniela Ungureanu where she studied the role of ROR1 pseudokinase signaling in B-cell malignancies and ovarian cancer and aimed to identify drugs that could work in combination with ROR1-targeted cancer therapies. In the Vasan lab, her research focuses on understanding how kinases regulate cancer cell growth using genome editing screens.

Shalinda Fernando, PhD

Shalinda received his PhD in Molecular Medicine from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He was part of Peter Sheperd’s lab and researched how gene variants unique to Polynesian populations affect metabolic cell signaling and health. He also worked with a multi-disciplinary team headed by Jack Flanagan in Auckland to develop novel cKIT inhibitors to treat gastrointestinal stromal tumors. In the Vasan Lab, Shalinda’s research focuses on how mutations in the PI3K pathway genes drive breast cancer.

Lila Taylor

Lila is the lab manager and a research technician at the Vasan Lab, where she various molecular targets as potential oncogenes / tumor suppressor genes via CRISPRi and signaling pathway details of phosphatase SHP2. She received her B.S. in Biology from Duke University, where she studied the impact of age on ovarian cancer development and progression in the Murphy Lab. In her free time, she volunteers as a companion to palliative care patients in Washington Heights and as an educator to K-12 students in New York traditionally excluded from the scientific community due to factors such as race, gender, economic status, and physical access. Lila hopes to one day become an oncologist, and will be applying to medical school this summer.

Ipek Simay Gokulu, PhD

Simay received her BSc degrees in Chemical & Biological Engineering and Industrial Engineering from Koc University, Turkiye. She then obtained her MSc and PhD degrees in Biochemical Engineering from Columbia University. During this time, she worked on protein engineering, enzymatic modulation strategies, protein-nucleic acid hybrid systems and bioconjugation techniques in the Banta Lab. Currently, she is investigating the effects of genetic mutations in various phosphatase subunits on cancer formation, growth and drug responses in the Vasan Lab.

Prashath Karunaraj, PhD

Prashath is originally from Sri Lanka. He obtained BS in Biochemistry and molecular biology from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, MS in Biotechnology from South Asian University, India, and Ph.D. in Genetics from University of Otago, New Zealand before moving to the US for his Postdoctoral Fellowship. In the Vasan lab, he is working to understand metastasis and tumor micro-environment of breast cancer in genetically modified rat models (GERMs), and an integrated mechanism of SHP2-Y62 phosphorylation.

Maya Schonberg

Maya is a junior at Barnard College studying cellular/ molecular biology. Having worked in the Vasan Lab since high school, Maya is passionate about cancer research and hopes to pursue a career in the field. In the lab, she is working with Hanna on her research on CRISPR-Cas9 base editing. Outside of the lab, she loves music, exploring the city’s food landscape and spending time with her two Shih Tzus.