School of Medicine
Showing 11-20 of 35 Results
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Yi Liu
Postdoctoral Scholar, General Surgery
BioDr. Liu is a postdoc fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also a Chinese board-certificated, fellowship-trained clinician with demonstrated clinical and research expertise in Critical Care Medicine and interdisciplinary studies of nanomedicine.
She received her residency and fellowship training (Emergency Medicine & Intensive Care Medicine) at Chongqing Medical University (China) and Pierre and Marie Curie University (Paris 6 Univ., Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France). In addition to her MD degree, She undertook PhD training in nanomedicine for cancer/infectious disease early detection and to identify potential new treatments for severe infectious/cancer patients. Her postdoctoral training in nano-enabled therapeutic at Stanford has helped advance her knowledge of how nanotechnology improve the application of nanomedicine in early diagnosis of diseases. She has published numerous articles on a wide range of nanoplatforms-related topics. She has also received several academic and teaching awards related to clinical skills and research on molecular imaging. -
Islam Mohamed Nour Hassan Mohamed
Postdoctoral Scholar, Pediatric Surgery
BioDr. Islam Nour is a molecular virologist with over fifteen years of research experience spanning viral genomics, reverse genetics, and structural–functional analysis of pathogenic RNA viruses. As a previous postdoctoral fellow in Molecular Virology at USDA-ARS, he designed and deployed reverse-genetics systems for IBDV and avian reovirus, integrated Illumina and Oxford Nanopore sequencing with comparative genomics, and coupled these approaches to IHC/IF-based pathogenesis models. His earlier work on rotavirus and SARS-CoV spike evolution, protein modelling, and molecular viral surveillance further strengthened his ability to connect viral sequence variation to phenotypic outcomes and tissue injury. He is particularly motivated to bring this mechanistic and translational expertise to multidisciplinary clinical teams in pediatric liver disease and transplantation in division of pediatric surgery in Stanford Medicine, contributing rigorous viral pathogenesis, vector design, and protein expression skills to clinically relevant models and biomarker discovery.
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Adel Mutahar
Postdoctoral Scholar, General and Vascular Surgery
BioDr. Adel Z. I. Mutahar is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Surgery at Stanford University, working under the mentorship of Dr. Frederick M. Dirbas. His research focuses on translational breast cancer biology and emerging radiotherapy technologies, with an emphasis on tumor–microenvironment interactions, immuno-oncology, and preclinical therapeutic development. His academic journey spans three countries—beginning in Yemen, advancing through India, and now progressing at Stanford—reflecting his commitment to impactful cancer research and global scientific advancement.
Dr. Mutahar began his career in Yemen, earning his Bachelor’s degree in Medical Laboratory Sciences before joining Abs Community College as a faculty member. From 2007–2013, he held several academic leadership roles, including Academic Director, Head of Evaluation, and Assistant Dean of Students, where he modernized curriculum, expanded hands-on diagnostic training, and strengthened laboratory education infrastructure in resource-limited settings. His work contributed to building a more skilled medical diagnostics workforce and improving pathways for laboratory science education.
Awarded a prestigious national merit scholarship, Dr. Mutahar continued his graduate and doctoral training in India, completing his M.S. and Ph.D. in Biotechnology with a focus on triple-negative breast cancer. During his doctoral work, he developed 3D tumor spheroid models and combinatorial therapeutic strategies, demonstrating synergy between anti-angiogenic agents and chemotherapy in TNBC. He further advanced this research by creating an orthotopic murine model to investigate metastatic progression and demonstrated that knockdown of the MTA1 gene in mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) significantly suppressed TNBC invasion, angiogenesis, and metastatic spread, introducing a promising stromal-targeted therapeutic concept for aggressive breast cancer. This work earned recognition through travel grants, conference presentations, and a Best Poster Award. His scientific adaptability was further demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he uncovered a novel interaction between SARS-CoV-2 Spike RBD and VEGF signaling.
At Stanford, his work emphases on FLASH radiotherapy, an ultrahigh-dose-rate modality with the potential to widen the therapeutic window by minimizing normal-tissue toxicity while maintaining tumor control. Working within Dr. Dirbas’s translational breast oncology program, Dr. Mutahar employs patient-derived xenografts, orthotopic murine models, spatial transcriptomics, single-cell RNA sequencing, and immune profiling to dissect the biological mechanisms governing treatment response. His research integrates multi-omics analysis to map early and late radiotherapy injury pathways—including senescence, apoptosis and fibrosis. His goal is to develop mechanism-driven radio-immunotherapy strategies and durable FLASH-RT combination regimens that can be translated into clinical trials for breast cancer, improving therapeutic durability, minimizing toxicity, and ultimately enhancing patient outcomes.
Dr. Mutahar’s long-term vision is to establish an independent laboratory at the intersection of radiobiology, immuno-oncology, and translational therapeutics. Guided by Dr. Dirbas’s mentorship and shaped by multidisciplinary experience across three continents, he aims to develop biologically informed treatment strategies that eradicate tumors while preserving normal tissue and immune integrity—ultimately improving quality of life and survival for women with aggressive breast cancers. -
Kenneth Nieser
Postdoctoral Scholar, General Surgery
BioKen Nieser is a postdoctoral research fellow through the Big Data-Scientist Training Enhancement Program (BD-STEP) at the Palo Alto VA and in the Department of Surgery, Stanford School of Medicine. Ken received a BA in Physics and Mathematics from Swarthmore College and a PhD in Epidemiology with a minor in Statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During his PhD, Ken developed and applied statistical methods for improving algorithmic fairness of data analyses used to inform screening and treatment of mental illnesses. These projects included development of an approach for detecting sample subsets with differential psychological symptom patterns and a sample representation reweighting method for improving the precision of subgroup-specific treatment effect estimation.
Ken’s current research interests are in health care inequities, quality measurement, and algorithmic fairness. During his fellowship, Ken will be working on investigating the statistical reliability of quality measures and decomposing health care disparities to provide practical information for resolving inequities, with applications in mental health care and surgical care. -
Alejandra Ruiz
Postdoctoral Scholar, General Surgery
BioDr. Alejandra Ruiz is a physician scientist with experience in high-complexity medical settings, including oncology and intensive care. She is a strong advocate for integrative care, addressing both physical and mental health needs. Currently, Dr. Ruiz is a postdoctoral researcher in both the Department of of Emergency Medicine and the Department of Surgery, where she investigates the barriers faced by underserved communities when seeking health care while developing strategies to improve access and connection to health services. Deeply committed to community based participatory research and health advocacy, Dr. Ruiz is dedicated to creating sustainable pathways for underserved populations to receive comprehensive care.
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Yann Sakref
Postdoctoral Scholar, General Surgery
BioYann Sakref is a Postdoctoral Scholar in General Surgery at Stanford University, working within the Knowlton Lab. With a passion for interdisciplinary sciences and advancing medical biotechnology and patient care, Yann is developing clinical and AI solutions as part of an ARPA-H-funded project under Dr. Knowlton's supervision. His work focuses on creating computer vision models for surgical assistance and contributing to the collaborative development of innovative tools by working closely with clinical, engineering, and AI teams. He also works closely with collaborators at the S-SPIRE Center.
