Baris Avsaroglu
PhD Post-Doctoral Fellow
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Baris got his PhD in Physics at Brandeis University, Waltham MA. During graduate school, he worked on functional chromosome organization in yeast with particular interest on DNA recombination. He continued his career as postdoc at UC Berkeley working on worm meiosis. Currently, Baris is developing cell biological sensors using optogenetics and synthetic notch receptors to determine how tumor cells interact with host cells during the metastatic process. Follow up work has the potential to characterize the  targets of metastatic progression of tumors.


​​Joy Gittins
Laboratory Assistant III
Cell and Tissue Biology

Joy is the 6th and 7th floor lab tech. Orignally from Leyete, Philippines, Joy has worked for the Goga lab since 2012.  Joy has helped shape the lab by maintaining inventory and keeping the lab well stocked.

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​Matthew Gruner
PhD Postdoctoral Fellow
​NIH F32 Fellow

Matt is interested in understanding what RNA can tell us about how cells work and what happens during disease. Many RNAs are transcribed and not translated into protein but rather regulate protein production. Recently circRNAs were shown to regulate cell division during development and cancer via interactions with microRNAs, transcription factors and RNA binding proteins. As a PhD student at the University of Nevada in Reno he helped identify new circRNAs in the nematode C. elegans that accumulate throughout its lifespan. During his postdoc at UCSF he hopes to identify a circRNA signature for specific oncogenes such as Myc then dissect the pathways necessary for circRNA-dependent oncogenesis.

Seda Kilinc
​​PhD Postdoctoral Fellow
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​Seda obtained her PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Wesleyan University.  Currently, Seda studies how different oncogenes regulate extracellular vesicle (EV) production and release. Cancer cells release high number of EVs that either favor intracellular tumor growth and/or promote tumor microenvironment by altering the behavior of surrounding cells. Seda focuses on how MYC oncogene alters EV release and aim to elucidate the mechanism of EV biogenesis by dissecting MYC-driven deregulated metabolic and membrane biosynthetic pathways. She also investigates how diverse oncogenes affect the protein and RNA content inside EVs and what are the underlying mechanisms to load their specific cargo into EVs.

Joyce Lee
PhD Postdoctoral Fellow
​NIH F32 Fellow

Joyce is interested in the interplay between metabolism, gene expression, and cancer progression. As a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, Joyce studied how acetyl-CoA metabolism contributes to cancer programs such as growth and migration through altering histone acetylation. As a postdoc in the Goga lab, she hopes to identify metabolic vulnerabilities that are targetable in MYC-driven cells and unveil metabolic pathways that might contribute to resistance mechanisms.

Sensen Lin
Visiting Researcher
Associate Professor at China Pharmaceutical University
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Sensen Lin is a visiting researcher and an associate professor of China Pharmaceutical University. Currently, he is working on cancer metabolic reprogramming driven by Myc oncogene. Tumor metabolism is known to promote cancer cell growth and survival; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying metabolic alterations remain unclear. By using a conditional model that drives Myc oncogene expression and tumorigenesis, Lin found that Myc-driven tumors heavily relied on methionine metabolism. He also interested in novel anti-cancer drug screening and established some high-throughput screening models.

Leanna Monteleone
PhD Postdoctoral Fellow
 NCI T32 Fellow

​Leanna obtained her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis in Chemistry with a designated emphasis in Biotechnology. At UC Davis, she focused on designing orthogonal systems using adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (ADARs) for site-directed RNA editing. During her time in the Goga lab, Leanna aims to identify small molecules that stabilize protein-protein interactions with MYC and understand mechanistically how that leads to MYC degradation. Leanna also seeks to identify novel targets of MYC elevated cancers to reverse the MYC gene signature.

Ton Montoya
UCSF BMS Graduate Student
IMSD and NSF Graduate Fellow

 Ton graduated from UCLA in 2015. He is a PhD student in the Biomedical Sciences program at UCSF and joined the Goga lab in 2018 to study cancer metabolism. He is optimistic that he will achieve his longstanding goal of graduating from UCSF in less than 10 years. 
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Rachel Nakagawa
UCSF BMS Graduate Student
NSF Graduate Fellow

Rachel graduated from UC Davis in 2015 with a degree in Genetics and Genomics. Following graduation from UCD, Rachel went on to study cell-cell communication in mycobacteria. She is currently enrolled in the Biomedical Sciences PhD program at UCSF and joined the Goga Lab to study the functionality of tumor heterogeneity. Her project aims to establish a model in which tumors maintain heterogeneity as a means of cell cooperation to facilitate tumor initiation and progression.

Dan Van de Mark
​​PhD Postdoctoral Fellow
NIH T32 Fellow

Dan obtained his Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University studying the regulation of centrosome duplication in mammalian cells. Dan's postdoctoral work at UCSF follows up on previous studies from the Goga lab that identified a synthetic lethal interaction between MYC-overexpression and CDK1-inhibition. This interaction has been proposed as a potential targeted therapy for MYC-overexpressing cancers. Specifically, Dan’s work aims at developing a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying this synthetic lethality with the goal of developing new, more specific, therapeutic strategies in the future.

Jeremy Williams 
UCSF BMS Graduate Student
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Jeremy hails from Boston, Massachusetts and Landgrove, Vermont. After graduating from Middlebury College, he went on to study hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) and oxygen metabolism, sparking his interest in cancer cell metabolism and tumor microenvironment. Jeremy is currently enrolled in the Biomedical Sciences PhD program at UCSF and joined Goga Lab, where he will be studying 1) potential mechanisms to directly target and inhibit MYC, 2) the role of fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs) in fulfilling demand for increased fatty acid oxidation (FAO) in certain MYC-elevated cancers, and 3) mechanisms by which tumor microenvironment might support increased FAO in triple-negative breast cancer.

Juliane Winkler
​​PhD Postdoctoral Fellow
EMBO Postdoctoral Fellow
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Juliane is a trained Pharmacist and received her Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, where she studied how nuclear transport alterations promote aggressive hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In her postdoc at UCSF Juliane worked in the lab of Zena Werb on the impact of tumor heterogeneity on breast cancer metastasis.  She helped develop a novel multiplexing approach for single cell RNA-sequencing (MULTI-Seq). Juliane applies this technology to understand the implications of tumor stemness and the tumor-immune cell axis on metastatic progression on a single-cell resolution. Now, Juliane is working on testing therapeutic targets which can fight metastatic breast cancer.

Former Lab Members