School of Medicine
Showing 931-939 of 939 Results
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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. -
Gabriella Muwanga
Temp - Non-Exempt, Anesthesia - Adult Pain Medicine
BioGabriella Muwanga is a Neurosciences graduate student in the Tawfik and Airan labs at Stanford. She is interested in understanding acute and chronic pain mechanisms and developing therapies for acute and chronic pain through basic and translational research. Gabriella holds a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences from Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. She is passionate about teaching, mentorship, science communication, and fostering diversity in science. Outside the lab, she enjoys writing, singing, drawing, Bible Study, and fellowship.
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Jonathan N. Myers
Clinical Professor (Affiliated), Medicine - Med/Cardiovascular Medicine
BioDr. Myers is a Health Research Scientist at the Palo Alto VA Health Care System; a Clinical Professor at Stanford University (Affiliated), and a Senior Research Career Scientist Award recipient through the VA Rehabilitation Research and Development Program. His research has focused on primary and secondary prevention, and the clinical applications of exercise testing and rehabilitation in patients with cardiovascular disease and other chronic conditions. He has a lengthy history of studying the epidemiology of cardiopulmonary exercise test responses, physical activity patterns, and other lifestyle factors and their relation to health outcomes. He manages the Veterans Exercise Testing Study (VETS), an ongoing, prospective evaluation of Veteran subjects referred for exercise testing for clinical reasons, designed to address exercise test, clinical, and lifestyle factors and their association with health outcomes.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his master's degree from San Diego State University, and his doctorate from the University of Southern California. He has been a board member for many organizations including the American Heart Association (AHA), the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR), and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and serves on the editorial board for 9 journals. He is a recipient of the Michael Pollock Established Investigator Award through the AACVPR, a recipient of the Steven N Blair Award for excellence in physical activity research from the AHA Council on Epidemiology and Prevention and is the 2022 recipient of the American College of Sports Medicine Citation Award. He is a fellow of the AACVPR, ACSM, American College of Cardiology, and the AHA, and has authored and co-authored guidelines on exercise testing and rehabilitation for each of these organizations, including the 2021 editions of the ACSM and AACVPR guidelines. -
Varsha Mysore Athreya
Postdoctoral Scholar, Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery
BioVarsha began her academic journey with a BS in Speech and Hearing from the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) in Mysuru, India. She earned her Master’s degree in Audiology in 2018, with a thesis focused on temporal processing and speech perception in noisy environments. She completed her doctoral degree in May 2024, working with Dr. Bharadwaj on age-related effects on temporal processing and speech perception, and with Dr. Heinz on the effects of peripheral hearing damage on cortical auditory responses. Currently, she is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University with Dr. Matthew Fitzgerald, where she is developing pipelines for handling large clinical datasets and applying machine learning to enhance clinical diagnosis and management.
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David Myung, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and, by courtesy, of Chemical Engineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsNovel biomaterials to reconstruct the wounded cornea
Mesenchymal stem cell therapy for corneal and ocular surface regeneration
Engineered biomolecule therapies for promote corneal wound healing
Telemedicine in ophthalmology
