Lab Members

Dr. Samuel is currently the Research Associate in the team, a position he has held since July 2019. He enrolled for his PhD program at the University of Kerala and performed his PhD work as an exchange student at the Molecular Cardiology and Angiogenesis Laboratory at the University of Connecticut Health Center (Connecticut, USA; 2006-2010) after which he successfully defended his thesis and was awarded his PhD degree in Biochemistry in December 2010 by the University of Kerala.

During his PhD work, Dr. Samuel mastered techniques such as rat and mouse LAD occlusion (myocardial infarction model), mouse hind-limb ischemia model, confocal microscopy, and western blotting, among others. He has sound research experience in diabetes, endothelial dysfunction, oxidant stress, endoplasmic reticulum stress, myocardial angiogenesis, and tumor angiogenesis.

Prior to joining Dr. Büsselberg’s team as a visiting scientist (Dec 2017 – Dec 2018) Dr. Samuel worked as a post-doctoral associate with Dr. Chris Triggle and Dr. Hong Ding at WCM-Q (2011-2017). During his post-doctoral fellowship, Dr. Samuel was also a recipient of the Junior Scientist Research Experience Program grant (Feb 2013-Nov 2016) awarded by Qatar National Research Fund.

Dr. Samuel has more than 50 peer-reviewed original and review publications, with several published in high-impact journals such as Circulation, Trends in Microbiology, Diabetes, Cancer Treatment Reviews, and Cancers.

Currently, Dr. Samuel is interested in investigating the molecular link between diabetes and cancer (including breast cancer and colorectal cancer), identifying possible key diagnostic and or prognostic biomarkers for the condition, and investigating the potential anti-cancer properties of anti-diabetic drugs such as metformin.

More details of Dr. Samuel’s research background can be found at:

• ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5541-6623
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=uLduWzsAAAAJ
• Scopus ID: 16647208800
• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Samson_Samuel3

Research: Funding

Completed:

• JSREP3-016-3–009: The role of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in diabetes associated impaired angiogenesis (2013-2016) – awarded by QNRF

Role: LPI

Active:

• NPRP11S-1214-170101: Anti-diabetic drugs in the treatment of breast cancer - identifying the molecular mechanism(s) and key biomarker(s) (June 2019-July 2023) – awarded by QNRF

Role: Research Associate/Team Member

Elizabeth Varghese is a Postgraduate in Microbiology, at present holding the position of Senior Research Specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar. Primarily, her work involves managing the lab, training students, and performing and analyzing experiments. She is currently engaged in research funded by a National Priorities Research Program (NPRP) grant awarded by Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) which focuses on anti-diabetic drugs in the treatment of breast cancer. She uses her scientific expertise in performing specialized techniques such as flowcytometry, fluorescent microscopy and confocal microscopy and aims at elucidating the link between tumor metabolism, anti-cancer drug efficacy and improving anticancer drug efficacy in combination with glucose metabolism modifying drugs. She was also a part of another NPRP-funded project which focused on calcium signaling in neuroblastoma. Her contribution to the projects has resulted in publications of papers in several high-impact peer-reviewed journals and presentation of posters in several conferences. Prior to joining Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, she worked in diverse fields such as teaching, R&D, and research at premier research institutes in India.

More details on Elizabeth Varghese’s research background can be found at:

• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elizabeth-Varghese-2