People
Principal Investigator
David Kashatus, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Email: kashatus@virginia.edu
Dave received his bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University in 1997 and his Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2006, studying under Al Baldwin. After a postdoctoral fellowship with Chris Counter at Duke University, he moved to UVA in 2012. Dave’s lab is interested in the role of mitochondrial dynamics in tumorigenesis.
Graduate Students
Salma Sharmin
Graduate Student
Email: ss2cm@virginia.edu
Salma received both her B.S. (2011) and M.S. (2012) in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. She is currently using patient-derived xenografts to explore how mitochondrial heterogeneity contributes to pancreatic tumor growth.
Christopher Prevost
Graduate Student
Email: cp2me@virginia.edu
Chris received both his B.S. (2013) and M.S. (2015) in Biology from SUNY Brockport. He is currently investigating how DNA damage and other cellular stresses impact organelle dynamics and how these processes contribute to tumor growth.
Daniel Phipps
Graduate Student
Email: pux6qa@virginia.edu
Daniel received his B.A. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2019 and his M.S. in Biology from East Carolina University in 2022. He is using in vitro and in vivo approaches to understand the metabolic consequences of Ras-induced mitochondrial fission in colorectal cancer.
Undergraduates:
Will Gansereit
Email: qkr4mx@virginia.edu
Will is studying stress-induced lipid droplet formation.
Sophia Shaffer
Email: gpp8ex@virginia.edu
Sophia is studying mitochondrial dynamics in colorectal cancer.
Senior Laboratory Specialist
Jennifer Kashatus
Senior Laboratory Specialist
Email: jk4gw@virginia.edu
Jen received her B.S. in Biology from Wake Forest University in 1996. She worked in academia and industry for 15 years before joining the lab in 2012. Jen has a range of experience in nuclear receptors, adipogenesis, gut biology and circadian biology. She currently manages the lab and is developing genetically-engineered mouse models to understand the role of Ras-induced mitochondrial fission in pancreatic cancer.