Richard L. Possemato, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor, Department of Pathology
Co-Director, Cancer Cell Biology Program, Perlmutter Cancer Center
Postdoctoral Fellow with David Sabatini, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
Ph.D. in Experimental Pathology, William Hahn, advisor, Harvard Medical School, 2008
B.S. Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001
B.S. Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001
For his doctoral work, Richard studied cellular models of human cell transformation under the advisement of Dr. William Hahn. In his post-doctoral studies with Dr. David Sabatini, Richard developed genetic tools and designed culture systems to investigate the contributions of the nutrient environment on cancer cell metabolism, and described a key role for the serine biosynthesis pathway in human breast cancer. Richard joined the Pathology Department at the NYU School of Medicine in 2014.
Current members
Postdocs, students, and staff
Erdem Terzi, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Ph.D., New York University Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences
Kenji Fujihara, Ph.D.
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Ph.D., University of Melbourne, 2021
Gregory Francis, Jr.
Graduate Student
B.S. University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2021
Behnia Akbari
Graduate Student
M.Sc., Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 2022
Andrew Markhard
Graduate Student
B.A., Carleton College, 2009
Former lab members
Alumni
- Marte Molenaars, Ph.D. — Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2021–2024. Department of Endocrinology, Amsterdam UMC.
- Douglas Biancur, Ph.D. — Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2021–2026. Post-Doctoral Fellow, NYU Langone Health.
- Gabrielle Whiten, Ph.D. — Graduate Student, 2019–2026. Medical Communications, Omnicom Health.
- Diana Erenburg — Research Technician, 2024–2025. PhD Candidate, NYU Vilcek Institute.
- Minwoo Nam, Ph.D. — Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2017–2024. Now Scientist, Oncology, at Pinetree Therapeutics.
- Abdul Hannan Mir — Lab Manager, 2019–2024. Now Technician, Regeneron.
- Sandra Jeong — Research Technician, 2022–2023. SUNY Downstate Medical School.
- Elizabeth Gorodetsky Sher, Ph.D. — Graduate Student, 2020–2024. MSTP Student at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
- Joshua Shin, Ph.D. — Graduate Student, 2017–2022. Post-doctoral Fellow, Manning Lab, Harvard School of Public Health.
- Daniel McLaughlin, Ph.D. — Graduate Student, 2017–2022. Post-doctoral Fellow, New York Blood Center.
- Efiyenia Kaparos, M.S. — Graduate Student, 2020–2022.
- Luiz Gustavo Dubois, Ph.D. — Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2016–2018. Assistant Professor in Neurochemistry and Cellular Biology at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
- Vlad Sviderskiy, M.D., Ph.D. — Graduate Student, 2016–2020. MSTP Student at NYU School of Medicine.
- Denise Minton, Ph.D. — Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2015–2017. Medical Director at The Scienomics Group.
- Samantha Alvarez — Lab Manager, 2014–2020.
Pre-Doctoral Interns
Pre-doctoral research interns
- Jan Hirt — Medical Student Intern, ETH Zurich, Summer 2026.
- Anahita Sabrine Jahangir — UTSC Arts & Science Co-op Summer Intern, Summer 2026.
- Eric Jiang — Clear Direction Mentoring, PATH Forward Summer Intern, Summer 2026.
- Musfira Kashif — Clear Direction Mentoring, PATH Forward Summer Intern, Summer 2025.
- Azmi Aziz — Clear Direction Mentoring, PATH Forward Summer Intern, 2024–2025.
- Sadia Ali — Clear Direction Mentoring, PATH Forward Summer Intern, 2022.
- Takaharu Araki — High School Summer Intern, 2018–2019.
- Nicole Hirsh — NYU Summer Undergraduate Research Program Student, 2019.
- Shakirah Ssebyala — NYU Summer Undergraduate Research Program Student, 2017.
- Isabela Lamadrid — High School Summer Intern, 2017.