The Verhaak Lab

Brain tumors, sequencing, computational biology.

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Our research

We are a computational cancer biology lab with a research focus on the analysis of cancer genomics data to improve our understanding of cancer biology. We have a specialized research interest in understanding disease progression of brain tumors, particularly glioblastoma and glioma. We mostly use high throughput sequencing and computational analysis in our research.

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Open Positions

Job	Job Title	Location	Dept/Lab	Description

Lab Staff

Samir B Amin, MBBS, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate

Working in the comparative genomics field to study spontaneous development of canine and human glioma with emphasis on characterizing evolutionarily constrained (epi)genetic elements and the tissue context during oncogenesis.
Kevin J. Anderson, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate

Integrates biomechanical and genomic approaches towards the analysis of brain tumor heterogeneity and disease evolution.
Floris Barthel, M.D.

Postdoctoral Associate

Floris Barthel graduated from the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, The Netherlands with an MD degree in 2014. He subsequently joined the laboratory of Dr. Roel Verhaak at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas for a postdoctoral fellowship. He has since relocated to the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, Connecticut where he continues his postdoctoral studies. He is broadly interested in the evolutionary tumor genomics of adult gliomas.
Amit Gujar, Ph.D.

Research Scientist

Investigates the role of extrachromosomal DNA in brain tumor evolution and heterogeneity.
Molly Guthrie, BS

Research Intern

Extrachromosomal DNA in brain tumor development
Kevin C. Johnson, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate

The major focus of my research program is to investigate the epigenetic reprogramming along the continuum of cancer initiation to disease progression.
Hoon Kim, Ph.D.

Senior Research Scientist

Biomolecular Big Data Mining, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Genetics and Genomics, Tumor Resistance
Eileen King, BS

Research Administrative Assistant

Research Administrative Assistant at JAX Genomic Medicine in Farmington, CT
Jihe Liu, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate

Apply genetic and genomic approaches to understand brain cancer and tumor evolution.
Kristen Marsh

Research Administrative Assistant II

Provides administrative support to Drs. Verhaak, Oh and Robinson along with their scientific staff.
Frederick Varn, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate

Employs genomic and computational approaches to investigate how the immune response shapes brain tumor development.
Roel Verhaak, Ph.D.

Professor and Associate Director of Computational Biology, The Florine Deschenes Roux Chair for Genomics and Computational Biology

Roel Verhaak, PhD., is a Professor and Associate Director of the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, CT. The Verhaak lab studies glioma using genomic characterization and computational analyses, work that has helped redefine the way glioma in adult patients is classified. More recent efforts are focused on tumor evolution, which the lab is investigating using longitudinal tumor sequencing, single-cell sequencing, and via comparative oncology approaches. Roel Verhaak is a recipient of the AAAS Wachtel Award, the Agilent Early Career Professor Award, and the Peter Steck Memorial Award. He is a co-founder of Boundless Bio, a biotech company developing therapies against cancers containing extrachromosomal DNA amplifications.
Taylor Wade

Postbaccalaureate Researcher

The role of extrachromasomal DNA in brain tumors
Eunhee Yi, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Associate

Development of the molecular cytogenetic tool for tracing the extrachromosomal DNA to understand brain tumor heterogeneity and evolution.
Dacheng Zhao

Predoctoral Associate

I have joined Verhaak lab to study the role of ecDNA in cancer