Principal Investigator
Daniel Faden, MD FACS
Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Attending Surgeon, Mass Eye and Ear, Mass General Hospital
Associate Scientist, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Daniel Faden M.D., F.A.C.S., is a head and neck surgical oncologist and scientist in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Harvard Medical School. After completing medical school he was a Howard Hughes Research Scholar in the National Human Genome Research Institute studying cancer genomics. He then completed residency training in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at UCSF where he was embedded in the laboratory of HHMI Investigator Joe DeRisi studying viral oncogenesis. He completed three fellowships at the University of Pittsburgh in head and neck surgical oncology, in cranial base surgery, and a T32 research fellowship in the laboratory of Robert Ferris, MD PhD. In 2018 he returned to Boston where he is an attending surgeon in the division of head and neck surgical oncology at Mass Eye and Ear and Mass General Hospital and an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The Faden lab is a translational research laboratory focused on head and neck cancer biomarker discovery. The lab is currently funded by three NIH grants, as well as industry and foundation awards, to utilize tissue and blood-based approaches for studying head and neck cancer genomics with a focus on development of liquid biopsies for detecting, diagnosing, and monitoring HPV-associated cancers.
Lab Members
Dipon Das, PhD
Research Scientist
Dipon received his PhD in cancer biology from KIIT University, India where he studied DNA damage/repair pathways. He completed post-doctoral training at Philips Institute for Oral Health Research, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia, USA. His postdoctoral training focused on identifying the host factors essential for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) replication in cervical and head & neck cancers and delineating their mechanism of action. Before joining the Faden Lab he worked as a Senior Research Associate 2 at the University of Miami, Florida, USA. In the Faden Lab, Dipon manages the lab and leads the development of novel approaches for detecting HPV in the blood.
Samuli Eldorfs, PhD
Research Scientist
Samuli earned his PhD in Genetics from the University of Helsinki, focusing on mutations driving blood cancers. He worked as a bioinformatician at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, where he led the analysis of cancer mutations in patient samples. Before joining MEE, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, specializing in therapeutically targetable vulnerabilities in myeloid cancers. At the Faden Lab at MEE, he specializes in the computational analysis of NGS data from liquid biopsies of HPV-associated cancers. His research interests include developing computational approaches for analyzing liquid biopsy data, with a focus on cell-free RNA and DNA-based assays.
Gjystina Lumaj
Clinical Research Coordinator
Gjystina received her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University and Master’s degree in Biomedical Science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She previously worked as a surgical assistant for an oral & maxillofacial surgery practice. In her spare time she enjoys painting and baking.
Shriya Shukla
Clinical Research Coordinator
Shriya Shukla is the Clinical Research Coordinator and Research Assistant for the Mike Toth Cancer Research Center, where she supports research in the Faden, Kumar, and Shalhout labs. She earned her B.S. in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research interests include noninvasive diagnostic studies such as blood-based liquid biopsies, fluorescence lifetime imaging for surgical margin assessment, and circulating tumor DNA monitoring in head and neck cancers. Outside of the lab, she enjoys reading, hiking, and photography.
Qin Wang, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
Qin received his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University in China and completed his PhD in Bioengineering at the University of Washington. His PhD focused on developing diagnostic assays for infectious diseases, particularly HIV and COVID-19 in low-resource settings. Qin joined the Faden Lab as a postdoctoral research fellow, where he works on developing liquid biopsy assays for HPV-associated cancer and their use in HIV-positive populations. His long-term research interest is technology development to expand healthcare access in low-resource settings for global health. In his spare time, Qin enjoys tennis, running, being in the mountains as well as staying indoors with his cat.
Yifan Yang, MD
Postdoctoral Researcher
Yifan received her bachelor’s degree in clinical medicine at Capital Medical University in China and MD in Otorhinolaryngology, head and neck surgery, focusing on clinical and scientific research of head and neck cancer. She completed residency training at Beijing Tongren Hospital and works there as a head and neck cancer surgeon. Her research interests include non-invasive methods for early prediction of head and neck tumor incidence and progression. In her spare time she enjoys swimming, skiing, and hiking.
Łukasz Zaręba, MD
Postdoctoral Researcher
Łukasz received his MD degree from the Medical University of Warsaw. He is currently a resident physician in the Otorhinolaryngology Clinic of Czerniakowski Hospital in Warsaw and a PhD student at the Medical University of Warsaw. His research focuses on the role of extracellular vesicles in cancer within the head and neck region. His main research goal is to contribute to the development of accessible, affordable screening tests for head and neck cancer and to improve its management strategies. In his free time, he enjoys swimming and playing board games with friends.
Annie Abruzzo
Graduate Student
Annie is a current Harvard Medical School student interested in pursuing a career in otolaryngology. She studied biology and history at Swarthmore College, and subsequently spent two years studying Streptococcus pneumoniae colonization of the nasopharynx at NYU. Her research interests include applications of liquid biopsy for screening and early detection of HPV-associated head and neck cancers. When not in the hospital or lab, Annie enjoys running and baking for her friends.
Lab Alumni
Kim Chang Sing Pang, MD
Research Scholar (2020)
Current position: Resident Physician, Amsterdam UMC, Netherlands
Mao Lin, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher (2020-2021)
Current position: Research Scientist, Mass General Hospital
Connor O’Boyle, MD
Research Scholar (2020-2021)
Current position: Resident Physician, Wayne State University
Natalia Queenan
Clinical Research Coordinator (2020-2022)
Current Postion: Medical Student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Philadelphia
Markus Haas, MD
Research Scholar (2021)
Current position: Resident Physician, Medical University of Vienna
Saskia Naegele, MD
Research Scholar (2021-2023)
Current position: Resident Physician, Northwell/Hofstra
Vasileios Efthymiou, MD
Postdoctoral Researcher (2022-2023)
Current position: Resident Physician, Mass General Northshore
Brian Zhao
Research Scholar (2022-2023)
Current position: Resident Physician, Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, NYU
Alan Ling, MD
Research Scholar (2023-2024)
Current position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Integrative Medicine, Fudan University
Shun Hirayama, MD PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher (2022-2024)
Current position: Resident Physician, Wakayama Medical University
Michael Bryan
Research Scholar (2023-2024)
Current position: PhD student, University of Oxford
Julia Mendel
Clinical Research Coordinator (2022-2024)
Current position: Medical student, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Daniel Ruiz-Torres, MD
Postdoctoral Researcher (2021-2025)
Current position: Resident Physician, Montefiore Medical Center
Yana Al-Inaya, MD
Research Scholar (2023-2025)
Current position: Research Scholar, Massachusetts General Hospital