Randolph H. Steadman, MD, joined Houston Methodist in March 2020 as the Carole Walter Looke Centennial Chair in Anesthesia and Critical Care in the Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care. Prior to joining us, he served in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at UCLA Health since 1994, most recently as Professor and Vice Chair for Education. His clinical work is directed toward the perioperative care of patients undergoing liver and abdominal organ transplantation. He served as the UCLA chief of service for liver transplantation from 1999 to 2018, and nationally with several organizations including as counselor for the International Liver Transplant Society, as chair of the ASA Committee for Transplant Anesthesia, and as a member of the UNOS Membership and Professional Standards Committee. He is the founding director of the UCLA Simulation Center, which has served undergraduate and graduate medical trainees and the continuing professional development community since 1996. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Anesthesiology. Steadman's publications focus on simulation-based training and assessment, transplantation and liver disease. His most recent research activities address transplant anesthesia, simulation for practice improvement, and the development of screen-based games for medical training.

Chih-Chi Andrew Hu, PhD, has joined the Center for Translational Research in Hematological Malignancies in December 2020 as a professor under the leadership of Qing Yi, MD, PhD, the Chair of the Houston Methodist Cancer Center. Hu comes from the Wistar Institute Cancer Center in Philadelphia where he was a professor in the Immunology, Microenvironment & Metastasis Program and a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Hu’s research interests include analyzing the mechanisms of B-cell development and B-cell cancer formation. He investigates the endoplasmic reticulum-associated stress signaling molecules, which play important roles in the quality control of secretory and integral membrane proteins. Hu is especially interested in knowing how hematological cancers employ these signaling molecules to work in favor of their survival, spreading and chemoresistance in response to therapies. These signaling molecules may also play a role in tumor development in other organs and are being evaluated in ovarian cancers, neuroblastoma and other tumor types. His laboratory has developed and patented a series of inhibitors such as B-I09 that can be used to treat these cancers. Hu and his lab take biochemical, cell biological, pharmacological and immunological approaches to study these questions in mouse tumor models and human cancer cells. Hu received his PhD at New York University School of Medicine and postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in MIT. Prior to joining Wistar, he was an Assistant Member at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida. 

Jing Yang, PhD, has joined the Center for Translational Research in Hematological Malignancies as an associate professor. Yang was previously an associate professor, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. Yang is a graduate of Xiangya Medical College, Central South University, Changsha, CHN, where she earned a PhD in Molecular Biology. Her research emphasizes on translating research results into better therapeutic targets in multiple myeloma. Her lab currently focuses on the interaction of tumor cells with adipocytes, the association of obesity and cancer, and the role of bone marrow microenvironment in chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and bone diseases. These studies aim to provide novel and potential therapeutic targets and tools for the treatment of myeloma patients.

Chih-Hang Anthony Tang, MD, PhD, has joined the Center for Translational Research in Hematological Malignancies at Houston Methodist Cancer Center in December 2020 as an Assistant Professor. Tang obtained his medical degree at National Defense Medical Center in Taiwan and PhD degree from Brandeis University under the tutelage of Dr. Michael Rosbash (2017 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine). He did his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Chih-Chi Andrew Hu at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia studying the role of endoplasmic reticulum resident proteins in B cell leukemia. Currently, the Tang laboratory focuses on elucidating the role of secretory IgM antibodies produced by normal or cancerous B cells in activating myeloid-derived suppressor cells to suppress anti-tumor T cell function within tumor microenvironments. Prior to joining Houston Methodist, Tang was a Staff Scientist in the Immunology, Microenvironment & Metastasis Program at the Wistar Institute.

Miguel Cainzos-Achirica, MD MPH PhD, joined Houston Methodist as Associate Director of Preventive Cardiology Research and Education in the Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center, where, together with Division chief Dr. Khuram Nasir, he coordinates a research team. He also serves as Assistant Professor of Preventive Cardiology at the Weill Cornell Medical College, and as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. He earned his medical degree in the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in 2007 and trained as a cardiologist in Barcelona, where he also completed a Diploma in Biostatistics and Study Design in the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He then moved to the United States where he did his MPH in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He also holds a PhD in cardiovascular epidemiology from the Universitat de Barcelona. His research interests include cardiovascular disease prevention, risk assessment, use of cardiac imaging tools for enhanced risk stratification, cardiovascular prevention among vulnerable populations with a special focus on people of South Asian ancestry, and advanced epidemiological research methods.