Our Team Members
Dr. Jennifer A. Foltz
Principal Investigator
Dr. Jennifer A. Foltz is an Assistant Professor at Washington University School of Medicine in the Department of Medicine and Section of Computational Biology and the Faculty Committee Chair for Mentorship to Enhance Diversity in Academia Program (MEDA). Her research interests lie in integrating computational biology and experimental immunology to understand mechanisms of response and resistance to natural killer cell therapy. Dr. Foltz completed her Masters in Cellular and Integrative Physiology at Indiana University School of Medicine and her PhD in Immunology under Dr. Dean Lee from University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center where she studied natural killer cells in canines as a large animal model for cancer therapies. Additionally, she studied the effect of chronic TGFβ exposure on expanded NK cells leading to the development of a novel TGFβ imprinted NK cell therapy that has been translated into several clinical trials for solid tumor malignancies. Subsequently, she joined the laboratory of Dr. Todd Fehniger at Washington University School of Medicine where she completed her Postdoctoral Fellowship studying mechanisms of memory-like NK cell anti-cancer functionality by integrating computational approaches with translational immunology under the co-mentorship of Dr. Allegra Petti.
Weihang Chen
Research Analyst
Weihang Chen received her Bachelor's Degree in Biology from Queen's University and Master's in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins University. After two years of training focusing in single-cell biology at Harvard Medical School in Drosophila genetics, she is currently interested in exploring how bioinformatic practice in multiomics and epigenetics can help us in better understanding Immunology and potentially informs cancer therapy.
Veda Vangala
Research Assistant
Veda Vangala holds a Master's in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology from University of South Florida and a Bachelor's in Dental Surgery from Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences. Her experience especially during period of COVID-19 pandemic motivated her to further contribute to research at the genomic level and improve the diagnostic and treatment approaches and, as a result, enhance patient outcome and lifespan. She is interested to implement and develop skills in contributing to research in cancer and infectious diseases.
Isabel Risch
MD/PhD Student in Computational and Systems Biology
Isabel Risch is currently an MD/PhD student in the Computational and Systems Biology program in both Griffith and Foltz labs. Prior to medical school, Isabel completed her undergraduate education at WashU, where she received degrees in Spanish and Biology. She also spent two years as a bioinformatician at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. She is interested in using bioinformatics to explore the ways in which the immune system interacts with various disease processes, including cancer.