Renu Dhanasekaran, MD PhD 

I am a physician scientist, the Pricipal Investigator (PI) of our lab.  I completed my medical school training in India before moving to the US. I pursued my Internal Medicine residency at the University of Florida, Gainesville followed by Gastroenterology fellowship at Mayo Clinic, Rochester and Transplant Hepatology fellowship at Stanford University. I completed my PhD training in Cancer Biology from Stanford University.

The focal point of my research career has been the study of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). I believe in taking a strong translational approach to study cancer biology using a bench-to-bedside approach. We actively employ mouse models of liver cancer, patient derived xenografts and genomic data from human HCC to study the role of tumor immune microenvironment and decode the heterogeneity of HCC.

I love mentoring students. I have formally and  informally mentored several students, residents and research fellows over the past few years. Watching my mentees succeed and move on to pursue their dreams is one of the greatest sources of joy for me, and I look forward to continuing to mentor more students and trainees in the coming years.

I am passionate about patient care and my clinical practice is mainly focused on liver cancer and I run a clinic specifically for patients with liver tumors. My patients serve as the main source of inspiration for my research questions. I also directly recruit patients from my clinic to my translational research projects. My other clinical activities include performing endoscopy and participating in tumor boards.

Dawiyat Massoudi, PhD

I earned a Ph.D. degree from the University of Toulouse, France. My graduate work focused on studying the role of FACIT collagens and MMP14 in the establishment and maintenance of corneal fibrosis after injury. Afterwards, I completed a postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where I investigated the role of a group of proteinases and their enhancers in Collagen processing, in tissue homeostasis and wound healing. I then moved to California and worked at UCSF as a senior scientist where I studied the chronic kidney disease caused by mutations in COL4A1 and COL4A2, and the role played by the unfolded protein response in retinal neurodegeneration. I joined the Dhanasekaran lab in March 2025 and one of my research interests lies in understanding the role of the immune system in the onset of hepatocellular carcinoma developed in the context of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis or MASH.

Lea Lemaitre, PhD

I completed my PhD in the field of cancer microenvironment at the Cancer Research Center in Toulouse, France in 2021. My previous work has focused on analyzing the cross-talk between macrophages and mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) in chemotherapy resistant ovarian cancer at the University of Toulouse. I joined the Dhanasekaran lab in 2021 to pursue my postdoctoral fellowship. I’m currently studying the immune tumor microenvironment, specifically, interrogating the involvement of T cells in cancer progression. I have always been convinced that immunotherapies represent the future of anti-cancer treatment. My current work involves the evaluation of immunotherapeutics to treat liver cancer.

Liqun Tu, PhD

I began my career in healthcare as a nurse, where caring for patients inspired my curiosity about the immune system and disease mechanisms. This led me to pursue a Ph.D. in Immunology at Jilin University, where I designed TGF-β2 inhibitors as adjuvants for microbial and cancer vaccines. Motivated to advance cancer immunotherapy, I completed postdoctoral training at Rutgers Cancer Institute, developing a novel strategy that combined NMD inhibition with personalized cancer vaccines and investigating HBV integrations in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). At Stanford, I expanded my research to immunology and rare diseases, studying ITK signaling in asthma, macrophage–ILC2 interactions in diabetes, and the role of SMARCAL1 in Schimke immune-osseous dysplasia using CRISPR-edited human cells and patient-derived iPSCs. I joined the Dhanasekaran Lab to pursue my passion for liver cancer research, focusing on complement-mediated macrophage reprogramming in MASH-associated HCC. My long-term goal is to translate immunologic discoveries into innovative therapies that improve outcomes for patients with cancer.

Shivani Babu

I am an undergraduate student at Stanford studying Human Biology with a concentration in the “Biological and Social Determinants of Oncological Health Outcomes.” My previous research experiences include investigating cancer treatments at MD Anderson Cancer Center and obesity treatments at Auburn University. In the Dhanasekaran Lab, my role is focused on patient-facing clinical research coordination.