Neali A. Armstrong PhD

Neali did her Ph.D in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University with Eric Gouaux where she solved crystal structures of the AMPA receptor ligand-binding domain in complex with several ligands.  She received a Jane Coffin Childs post-doctoral fellowship to continue studying the structure-function relationships of the AMPA receptor using electrophysiological and biochemical techniques.  Currrently, Neali is working on a mouse model for pheochromocytoma to determine how the loss of a metabolic enzyme  leads to tumorigenesis.   

Sooyeon Jenny Lee PhD

Sooyeon received her Ph.D. in Physiology at Pennsylvania State University where she studied the role of the zinc transporter ZnT2 in mammary gland development and functions during lactation in the laboratory of Shannon L. Kelleher. Sooyeon joined Annes lab in July 2016 to study the molecular connections between cellular metabolism, growth and function in beta-cells. 

Rebecca C. Schugar, PhD

Rebecca completed her PhD in Molecular Cell Biology at Washington University in Saint Louis with Peter Crawford, MD, PhD; her work focused on understanding the role of myocardial ketone body oxidation under both physiological and pathological stresses. Rebecca continued her studies in metabolism during her post-doc at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute with Mark Brown, PhD, where her work centered on a hepatic enzyme connecting microbial-derived metabolites to host metabolic health. In the Annes Lab, Rebecca will continue to work on underlying mechanisms driving obesity and diabetes using mouse models with tissue-specific knockout of a key metabolic enzyme. 

Haixia Xu MD PhD

Haixia completed clinical training in Internal Medicine of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University (P.R.China). She performed her post-doctoral studies in Weil Cornell Medical College with Xiaojing Ma and Xiaoyu Hu. Currently, she is working on identifying the optimal agents for reversing hypoglycemia.

Leor Needleman M.D.

Leor obtained his medical degree from Tel Aviv University in Israel. He then completed internal medicine residency at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. He is currently a research fellow within the division of Endocrinology at Stanford Medicine. Leor completed the clinical endocrinology portion of his fellowship training before joining the Annes lab in July 2023 to examine various endocrine genetics questions with valuable clinical application.

Qianjin (Tony) Guo PhD

Tony obtained his Ph.D. in Physiology at Peking University where he focused on the underlying mechanism of the heart diseases in the laboratory of Shi-qiang Wang. He performed his first three years post-doctoral studies in the laboratory of Patricia Dahia M.D., Ph.D. (UTHSCSA) where he studied the molecular mechanism of TMEM127 induced pheochromocytoma.

His current work in the Annes Lab focuses on how loss of SDHB leads to tumorigenesis and exploring novel avenues of the treatment

Stefania Demuro PhD

Stefania obtained her Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Bologna in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy) under the supervision of Prof. Andrea Cavalli where she focused her attention on the rational design and synthesis of novel multitarget protein kinase inhibitors to reverse protein tau hyperphosphorylation in Alzheimer's disease and related tauopathies. During her doctoral studies, she had the opportunity to join Prof. Carlo Ballatore's Lab at UC San Diego for six months to work on microtubule stabilizers for the same CNS disorders.

Her current work in the Annes Lab focuses on the synthesis and optimization of compounds for cell-targeted drug delivery to develop regenerative therapeutics for diabetes in collaboration with Dr. Mark Smith at Stanford ChEM-H.

Brian Lim

Brian is a 2^nd year undergraduate student at Stanford University majoring in Bioengineering. Brian comes from South Korea and Canada and plans to coterm in computer science and attend medical school in the future.

Pedro Ambriz

Hi! My name is Pedro, I am 4^th year undergrad student here at Stanford. I am majoring in bioengineering and plan to attend medical school. Apart from school, I enjoy playing basketball, weight lifting, and photography.

David Tomz

David is a rising senior at Palo Alto High School interested in the sciences, particularly biology and chemistry. This summer he is assisting Dr. Armstrong with her research about pheochromocytomas using mouse models.