Team

Lloyd Bod,PhD

Principal Investigator at MGH Center for Cancer Research, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Associate Member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard 

I grew up in Martinique, a beautiful island in the French West Indies. After leaving this paradise at 18 years old, I received my BS and MS from the Pierre and Marie Curie University and the “Ecole Normale Superieure” of Paris in Immunology, which confirmed my passion for the immune system and its application in diseases, such as cancer. I then completed my PhD thesis at the Cochin Institute, where I had the chance to learn about Melanoma immunology or B-cell, γδ T-cells, and the physiology of Tregs, before my postdoctoral training at the Kuchroo Lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. 

Kassiana Mafra Bicalho,PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

I was born and raised in Brazil, where I got my undergrad and grad degrees. After receiving my bachelor’s in biology, I continued my studies for Master and PhD in Cellular Biology and Immunology, focusing on B cells during the neonatal development of the liver. Part of this study was conducted at Brigham and Women`s Hospital (BWH)/Harvard Medical School (HMS) under the supervision of Dr. Rafael Rezende and Howard Weiner, where I had the opportunity to improve my work and be trained in new techniques. During my PhD studies I got fascinated by the field of immunology, especially the B cells. So, in June 2023 I joined Dr. Lloyd Bod lab at MGH as a postdoctoral fellow to proceed my studies in B cells, now focusing on cancer models.

As a postdoctoral fellow I`m interested in characterizing the B cells in the tumor environment, helping to find new targets for immunotherapy.

Chambit Paik,BS

Research Assistant

I was born in South Korea and grew up in the Philippines. I studied Medical and Molecular Biology at MCPHS University, where I became really interested in Cancer Biology during my last year. My journey reflects my curiosity and dedication. I aim to uncover the mysteries of how our immune system interacts with cancer cells to make a difference in fighting this disease. Now, I focus on understanding how our immune cells affect cancer, especially B cells.
Besides my passion for science, I also love exploring the arts. I enjoy visiting museums, watching movies, and traveling to new places.

Team

Fenisha Sha, MSc

Computational Biologist

I was born and raised in India and decided to leave the country at an age of 18. I moved to Miami for my undergraduate education. I pursued a BS in Electrical Engineering with a minor in chemistry and biology at University of Miami. I later decided to pursue a masters degree in Biomedical engineering with a focus on bioinformatics at Columbia University. This is where I dwelled into the world of genetics and transcriptomics. I did many projects dealing with big data like single Cell RNA seq. I also worked at different labs at Columbia exploring and enhancing analysis techniques like machine learning approaches, statistical methods. Now, my focus is to keep applying, developing and learning novel bioinformatics tools to derive important informative insights from biological datasets.

Kaiyao Li, BS

MSc student

I am from China, where I also completed my undergraduate studies. Currently, I am a graduate student at Tufts University, specializing in Data Analysis. During my Master's study, I fell in love with Bioinformatics, hoping to use statistical methods and computational models to solve real-world biomedicine problems. I also hope to enhance my programming skills and enrich my background knowledge in biology while interning here!

Team

Ranjan Maskey

Lab Manager 

I was born and raised in Nepal. After high school, I moved to the US for my Bachelor’s degree. I studied Biotechnology with a minor in Chemistry at North Dakota State University. My first job after college was at Boston Children’s Hospital, where I worked in the Flow Cytometry Core. I learned a lot about flow instruments and also did other tasks like managing the core, training new researchers, and troubleshooting instruments. After three years, I realized I was good at lab management and decided to pursue a career in it. Now, I manage four labs at Mass General Brigham Cancer Center, including the Bod lab.

Outside of work, I like to hike, ride my motorcycle, travel, and watch horror movies.

Brian Brannigan

Lab Manager

Jamie Weller

Sr. Grant Administrator

I have 17 years of experience in research administration. In addition to MGH, I have worked at several world-class academic and medical research institutions, including Harvard Medical School, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I enjoy assisting principal investigators like Dr. Bod with their grant applications and providing post-award financial support. When I’m not working on research grants, I enjoy CrossFit, cycling, and traveling.

Alumni

Summer 2023 Elliot Merle, BSc, Ecole Normale Supérieur Paris-Saclay, currently MSc student
July-December 2023 Lisa Isoard, MSc, Aix-Marseille Université, currently PhD student