Ken
Ken has a long-standing interest in structural biology and structure-guided drug design. This started at Brigham Young University, while studying cyclooxygenase inhibitors in the lab of Dan Simmons. At Stanford University, he studied transcription in the lab of Roger Kornberg. He completed residency training in the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program. During that time also worked in the laboratory of Nathanael Gray. In addition to scientific work, Ken is a practicing thoracic radiation oncologist in the Department of Radiation Oncology.
George
George received his Ph.D. in health sciences in 2013 from RMIT in Melbourne, Australia. He joined the Westover Lab in 2016 as a postdoctoral fellow where he worked on the structure of KRAS complexes on the cell membranes, including studies of cancer-causing KRAS mutants such as KRAS Q61H that alter the structure of those complexes. He continues now as an instructor leading efforts to understand the structure and functional differences between RAS isoforms and specific mutants.
Ashari
Ashari received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Brigham Young University, Utah, where she studied autophagy signaling, protein-protein interactions, and vesicle trafficking pathways. She joined the Westover Lab in June 2023 as a postdoctoral fellow where she works on molecular signaling of SRMS in autophagy and small molecular drug discovery for SRMS.
Simran
Simran is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Southern Methodist University studying biology and health and society on the pre-med track. She joined Westover Lab in August of 2024 and hopes to focus on protein structuring methods in the lab.
Xingxiao (Shelly)
Shelly received her M.S. in cell biology from Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute in China. She joined the Westover Lab in 2017 and is focused on the development of cellular models of cancer. Shelly is our lab manager.
Jane
Jane received her B.S. in biological sciences in 1987 from Stanford University. She joined the Westover Lab in 2021 and is focused on kinase drug discovery and studies that highlight unique and targetable properties of oncogenic forms of Ras.
Sandra
Sandra earned her B.S. in biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin, followed by her M.D. at UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2018. She completed her pediatrics training at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor before returning to UT Southwestern for additional fellowship training in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology where she continues to see patients. She joined the Westover Lab in 2023 and is focused on targeting a resistant FGFR1 mutation found in pediatric cancers.
Sahaj
Sahaj, a student at Carroll Senior High School in Southlake, is passionate about becoming a physician-scientist to make an impact on lives through both medicine and research. Growing up in Manhattan and Dallas, he is dedicated to helping underserved communities by working as an intern, scribing at clinics, volunteering at hospitals, researching cancer at several institutions, and helping students through his nonprofit, MEDILOQUY. Sahaj hopes to combine his love for patient care and science to improve healthcare access and contribute to important medical discoveries.
Ashley
Ashley received her B.S. in biochemistry in 2017 from the University of Texas at Austin. She joined the Westover Lab as an M.D./Ph.D. student in 2023 and is focused on designing selective kinase inhibitors.
Abeeb
Abeeb earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology in 2023 from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), where his research centered on protease-substrate engineering and structural biology. He also brings expertise in computer-aided drug discovery. Joining the Westover lab as a postdoctoral researcher in July 2023, Abeeb's interest lies in developing assays and designing targeted drugs for cancer drivers, with a particular focus on VRK1. Additionally, he leverages his knowledge to computationally design and optimize kinase substrates using protein design and structure prediction methods.
Yu-An
Yu-An received his Ph.D. in biomedical studies cancer molecular biology and therapy) in 1997 from Baylor University. He has been with UT Southwestern Medical Center research labs since 2009 and joined the Westover Lab in 2022. He is focused on the experimental works of biomarker discovery in MAP kinase pathway in RASopathies syndromes.