Team Bios

  • Mihai G. Dumbrava
  • M.D.-Ph.D. student (Regenerative Sciences)

Dumbrava earned his BMSc degree in biochemistry and pathology of human disease from Western University in Ontario, Canada, as a Scholar's Electives student. Under the mentorship of Martin L. Duennwald, Ph.D., he studied the mechanisms contributing to the onset of familial Parkinson's disease, focusing on the protein DJ-1 and using a yeast model, mammalian cells and patient tissues. Through a ThinkSwiss fellowship, he also pursued an internship in cancer biology research, studying breast cancer therapeutic development at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. In 2020, he was accepted into the M.D.-Ph.D. program at Mayo Clinic. He joined the Functional Epigenomics Lab in 2022 to perform his Ph.D. studies through the M.D.-Ph.D. program's Regenerative Sciences track.

His research focuses on understanding the drivers that promote the formation of invasive serous ovarian cancer and the key players in the tumor microenvironment that drive resistance to immunotherapy. His goal is to test the importance of the pathways that regulate the immunosuppressive milieu of ovarian cancer, and he is optimizing microfluidic cancer cultures to modulate these interactions.

  • Sierra J. Hamernick
  • Ph.D. student (Regenerative Sciences)

Hamernick is a Minnesota native pursuing a Ph.D. at Mayo Clinic in the Regenerative Sciences track. She completed her B.S. degree in genetics, cell biology and development at University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 2020. Her research both in her undergraduate studies and in industry focused on cellular approaches with primary cells and induced pluripotent stem cells to study various human conditions.

She joined the Functional Epigenomics Lab in 2024, and her current research focus is understanding cancer stem cells in ovarian cancer using single-cell epigenomic profiling and 3D organoid cultures.

  • Amelia Mazzone, Ph.D.
  • Senior Research Technologist

In 2019, Dr. Mazzone joined the Functional Epigenomics Laboratory, where she works in a senior capacity and as a lab manager. After receiving her doctorate in 2001 from the University of Bari in Italy, she came to Mayo Clinic in 2003 as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nicholas F. LaRusso, M.D., until 2005. Then she joined the laboratory of Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., and remained until 2019.

Starting as a senior postdoctoral fellow, she was promoted to the rank of research associate. Currently, Dr. Mazzone holds the academic rank of instructor in medicine. Her technical expertise in cellular and molecular biology techniques includes RNA sequencing, assay for transposase-accessible chromatin sequencing (ATAC-seq), multiple single-cell techniques and cell culture.

  • Wazim Mohammed Ismail, Ph.D.
  • Research Fellow

Dr. Mohammed Ismail is a bioinformatics research fellow in the Functional Epigenomics Lab at Mayo Clinic. His primary research interest is solving computational challenges in genomic and epigenomic assay data interpretation, specifically in the developing field of single-cell genomics. He graduated with dual degrees in computer science and biological sciences from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, in India, and earned a master's degree in bioinformatics and a Ph.D. in computer science from Indiana University Bloomington in 2020.

At Indiana University Bloomington, Dr. Mohammed Ismail developed several algorithms using combinatorial approaches and probabilistic modeling to solve problems in genomics, such as clonal reconstruction from allele frequency time series estimated with whole-genome sequencing of an evolving cell population. Before embarking on an academic career, he worked in industry as a software engineer and developer.

  • Amik Munankarmy, M.B.B.S, M.D.
  • Postdoctoral Fellow

In 2009, Dr. Munankarmy earned a medical degree from Tianjin Medical University in China and completed his master's degree in general surgery at Tongji University China in 2018. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in a collaborative project between the labs of Fergus J. Couch, Ph.D., and Dr. Maia.

Dr. Munankarmy's research focuses on identifying transcriptional dependencies in breast cancer using mammary epithelial cells, breast cancer cell lines and mouse models.

  • Yiwen Xie
  • Ph.D. student (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)

Xie received his B.S. degree in biochemistry and molecular biology in 2020 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his master's degree in biotechnology in 2022 from Northwestern University. He joined the lab in 2023.

Dr. Xie has been using bioinformatics tools to analyze transposable elements in ovarian cancer at the single-cell level and identify novel master regulators of chemotherapy resistance.