Lali Medina-Kauwe, PhD, will oversee and support Cedars-Sinai trainees who are advancing basic, translational, clinical and health services research across the organization.
Newswise — LOS ANGELES (June 26, 2024) -- Lali Medina-Kauwe, PhD, a nationally regarded expert in molecular engineering and nanoparticle cancer research, has been named associate dean of PhD programs and director of the PhD program in Biomedical and Translational Sciences at Cedars-Sinai.
Medina-Kauwe will oversee and support trainees who are advancing basic, translational, clinical and health services research across the organization. She will oversee administrative processes, graduate student admissions, education, evaluation and progress of all PhD programs.
Medina-Kauwe, who holds the Carol Moss Foundation Chair in Medical Discovery, will continue to serve as associate director of Basic Research at Cedars-Sinai Cancer.
“With Dr. Medina-Kauwe’s more than 30 years of experience in molecular engineering, her laboratory creates nanoparticle therapies engineered to target and halt cancer growth,” said Joshua I. Goldhaber, MD, vice dean of Graduate Education at Cedars-Sinai. “Under her leadership, her team has advanced technologies that deliver therapeutic agents to triple-negative breast cancer cells that metastasize to the brain. We are confident these skills will seamlessly translate to the students she will now help lead.”
Medina-Kauwe is a leading authority in harnessing the cell penetration functions of pathogen proteins to develop novel cell-targeted nanotherapeutics. She is an inventor on more than 25 biotechnology patents and has helped build two startup biotechnology companies.
As a mentor and teacher, Medina-Kauwe has developed cancer-focused curricula, chaired a review committee on graduate programs and served on Cedars-Sinai’s committee shaping graduate program strategic plans.
“Dr. Medina-Kauwe’s leadership is well known outside of Cedars-Sinai, having served on several advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health, including the Director’s Transformative Research Award review,” said Jeffrey A. Golden, MD, executive vice dean of Research and Education and director of the Burns and Allen Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai. “She will agilely build upon Cedars-Sinai’s strong foundation and accelerate the growth and distinction of our academic enterprise.”
Medina-Kauwe earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Occidental College and a PhD in molecular biology from UCLA. She later pursued postdoctoral training at Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, where she was honored with the National Cancer Institute’s CURE Minority Faculty Scholar. She is a two-time recipient of Cedars-Sinai’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
“My training and career path have led me to this opportunity, and I am thrilled to contribute more meaningfully to our research and academic enterprise,” Medina-Kauwe said. “My goal is for our trainees to feel prepared, supported and energetic about the challenging, yet rewarding, fields of science they’re entering.”
Read more from the Cedars-Sinai Blog: The Wide World of Cells
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