Our Team.
Team
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Principal Investigator
Sebnem Ece Eksi
Principal InvestigatorDr. Ece Eksi is a developmental neurobiologist and cancer biologist whose research investigates how nerve-tumor communication shapes prostate cancer progression and metastasis. Her lab integrates spatial proteomics, computational modeling, and experimental cancer-nerve systems to map the dynamic interactions between cancer, stromal, and neural cells within the tumor microenvironment. By uncovering how neuronal signaling drives tumor plasticity, her team aims to identify new therapeutic targets and biomarkers for early detection and treatment. Dr. Eksi earned her Ph.D. in Developmental Neurobiology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a B.S. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey, and completed a research internship at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich, Germany.
Graduate Students
Ariana Sattler
PhD studentAriana studies the interactions between sympathetic nerves and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) within the pancreatic cancer tumor microenvironment. Her work focuses on understanding how neural signaling reshapes the tumor microenvironment and aims to expand the emerging field of cancer neuroscience through interdisciplinary and translational approaches. Beyond the lab, at OHSU, Ariana served as President of the All-Hill Student Council and co-founded the Cancer Neuroscience Seminar Series to foster collaboration across disciplines. She is also deeply passionate about scientific communication and making complex biomedical research accessible to broader audiences.
Hanna Minns
MD/PhD StudentHanna is a MD/PhD student at OHSU, currently pursuing her PhD in Biomedical Engineering. Co-mentored by Dr. Daniel Cleary and Dr. Ece Eksi, she is investigating the effects of electrical fields on primary brain tumors, namely Glioblastoma, and cancer-neuron interactions. Hanna graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Biology before spending three years studying immunotherapies for pediatric brain tumors in Dr. Robyn Gartrell’s lab at Columbia University. Hanna ultimately hopes to advance the fields of neurosurgery and neuro-oncology through hypothesis driven research on how electrical fields can be modulated to elicit targeted cellular responses within the central nervous system, particularly in the context of brain tumors.
Bryan Chong
PhD studentBryan earned his B.S. in Neuroscience from Case Western Reserve University in 2024, where he conducted research on the biophysical mechanisms underlying circadian regulation under the mentorship of Dr. Masashi Tabuchi. Bryan is currently a graduate student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the Knight Cancer Institute and Vollum Institute at OHSU. He is interested in how androgens influence nerve innervation and function in prostate cancer. Outside of lab, Bryan enjoys trying new restaurants around Portland, playing basketball, lifting, watching movies, and mixing music.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Joseph Grieco
Postdoctoral ScholarI hold a Ph.D. in Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health from Virginia Tech (2022), where my research focused on ovarian cancer metabolism. Currently, my work investigates the genetic and epigenetic modifications that distinguish between hormone-dependent and independent prostate cancer and how hormone signaling influences disease progression. I am particularly interested in exploring the mechanisms of nerve-cancer communication and its role in promoting metastatic behavior. My goal is to integrate molecular biology and computational approaches to uncover new therapeutic targets in cancer progression.
Research Staff
Marigold Jane Kuykendall
Senior Research AssistantMarigold Jane Kuykendall is a biochemist working in Ece Eksi’s lab on prostate cancer spatial-omics and in silico drug development. She has worked in many disparate fields throughout her decade-long career, including food microbiology, wildlife field biology, structural biochemistry, and vaccine research. She graduated with a degree in Biochemistry from Oregon State University in 2021 and has been working as a research assistant at OHSU ever since. In her free time, Marigold enjoys taking photos on 35mm film and writing and reading reams of science fiction.
Brooke Stoddard
Research AssistantBrooke Stoddard is a research assistant studying Prostate Cancer and Ovarian Cancer at CEDAR. She graduated from Western Washington University with a bachelor's degree in biology in 2020. She is interested in early cancer testing and cancer neuron cross talk. When she's not in the lab, Brooke enjoys reading, knitting, and hiking.
Gulsu Sener
Research EngineerGulsu works as a research engineer in CEDAR. She received her Ph.D. in Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine from Hacettepe University. After her PhD she did postdoctoral research at Colorado School of Mines in the department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. During her graduate and postdoctoral studies, she focused on developing biomaterials for biosensing and drug delivery applications. She is now working on understanding the role of neuronal adhesion molecules expression in prostate cancer interactions with sympathetic neurons.
Kaoutar Ait-Ahmad
Research EngineerKaoutar Ait-Ahmad is a Research Engineer in Dr. Ece Eksi’s Lab at CEDAR (Knight Cancer Institute, OHSU). Her research aims to turn deep learning into practical tools that accelerate biomedical discovery and support downstream clinical applications. She works primarily with multiplexed tissue imaging and other high-dimensional modalities, developing end-to-end, interpretable pipelines for scalable analysis of complex biomedical data. Kaoutar earned her M.Sc. in Control, Signal & Image Processing from Paris-Saclay University in 2022 and an engineering degree from the Mohammadia School of Engineers in 2021. Outside the lab, she’s most at home on a trail, on the road, or lost in a thriller
Mark Wang
Computational BiologistMark Wang is a computational biologist in Dr. Ece Eksi’s group. He studies longitudinal prostate cancer progression by integrating CyCIF, H&E, and RNA-seq data, and develops computational pipelines ranging from data preprocessing steps such as batch effect removal to downstream steps such as spatial neighborhood analysis. He earned an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University in 2023 and has worked at OHSU since. Outside the lab, he enjoys exploring beautiful trails in PNW and reading a good book.
Administration
Janelle Jackson
Administrative AssistantJanelle is the current Administrative Professional for Dr. Eksi. Among her many interests and talents, her skills are heavily rooted in being the “tamer of chaos” in all forms. If you have a project that needs to be managed/organized, she will create a spreadsheet to house the details. If you need an answer to your question, she will help find it. If you need to know where your meeting is located, she will guide you there. If you need a pep-talk before your big presentation, she will happily sing your praises.