Biographies

Lakshmi Balagopalan, Ph.D., is an Associate Scientist in the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology (LCMB). She joined the laboratory of Lawrence Samelson, M.D. at the LCMB as a visiting fellow in 2003, the same year she received her Ph.D. in Genetics from the Pennsylvania State University. She was appointed as Staff Scientist in 2011 and promoted to Associate Scientist in 2019. She is interested in the molecular events that follow T cell activation via the T cell antigen receptor (TCR). Her studies using cutting edge microscopy techniques to visualize events immediately following TCR engagement have led to novel observations about the spatial and temporal organization of T cell signaling domains. These observations are currently being applied in the laboratory to improve T cell signaling and decrease T cell exhaustion for immunotherapy.

Dr. Balagopalan has been invited as a speaker and session chair at national and international meetings. Her expertise in microscopy has also led to her being a member of the CCR microscopy oversight committee. Dr. Balagopalan is passionate about the mentoring aspects of the Staff Scientist position. She has served as a formal mentor to 15 high-school and college students, postbacs and postdoctoral fellows. At the CCR, she has been the recipient of the NCI Director’s Innovation Award, Federal Tech Transfer Awards and, according to her the most significant, the NCI SS/SC Outstanding Mentor Award.

Since becoming a staff scientist in 2011, Dr. Balagopalan has been actively involved in the SS/SC community. She has been a section editor for the SS/SC newsletter, an active member of the Professional Development committee, Vice Co-chair of the Bethesda SS/SC association and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the SS/SC newsletter, the Dossier. She participated in developing the WSA survey for SS/SC, was part of a focus group to develop the SS/SC enrichment program and was involved in the organization of two roundtable conversations with the CCR Director for furthering SS/SC career goals and fulfilment. Having been and continuing to be part of different arms of the SS/SC organization, either in participatory or leadership roles, Dr. Balagopalan is in close touch with the everyday and long-term issues of SS/SCs.

Swati Choksi Ph.D., is a Staff Scientist in the Laboratory of Immune Cell Biology at the National Cancer Institute, NIH. She received her Ph.D. and training at Thomas Jefferson University. She is interested in cell death and the fine balance of apoptosis, necrosis and autophagy that regulates the fate of a cell, focusing on connecting cell death pathways to tumorigenesis. Dr. Choksi’s outstanding scientific productivity is reflected by her many publications in high impact peer-reviewed journals including Molecular Cell, Journal of Immunology, Nature Immunology, Nature Cell Biology, Cell Research, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Nature Communications and PNAS. She also has co-authored 4 scientific book chapters. Dr. Choksi has been awarded 3 patents.

Since becoming a Staff Scientist in 2009, Dr. Choksi has maintained an exemplary record of involvement in the scientific community by fostering mentoring, developing leadership skills and a commitment to better scientific productivity. She has honed her outstanding mentoring skills and has supervised over 20 college and high school students and has been a key advisor for post-doctoral fellows. She is a member of the CCR Staff Scientist/Staff Clinician (SS/SC) Organization and has served on several committees. Currently Dr. Choksi is the chair of the CCR SS/SC Professional Development Committee and organizes the Annual Professional Development Day and townhalls. As part of the SS/SC leadership Dr. Choksi has been involved in strategies for professional growth and to facilitate meaningful interactions to be our creative and productive best.  She is committed to seeking new solutions for greater involvement of Staff Scientists in the scientific enterprise at NIH. In 2017, Dr. Choksi was elected to the Assembly of Scientists and is currently on several committees of the AOS, including as chair of the AOS Staff Scientist Committee. The Assembly of Scientists is a way to provide NIH leadership with the Staff Scientist perspective of the challenges that compromise the research and professional environment of the NIH. To this end, Dr. Choksi is currently working with the NIH-wide SS organization to develop a standard for SS career development across all ICs. Dr. Choksi received the 2019 NIH Directors Service Award for her work on the NIH Harassment and Workplace Violence Policy Development Committee which has made great strides in increasing awareness, changing the culture and creating new anti-harassment policy for NIH.

Brunilde Gril, Ph.D., M.P.S., is a Staff Scientist in the Women’s Malignancies Branch. She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 2006 from the University of Paris Rene Descartes, France. The same year, she joined the laboratory of Patricia S. Steeg, Ph.D., as a visiting fellow, and was appointed staff scientist in 2013. Her studies focus on brain metastases of breast cancer and involve characterizing the blood-tumor barrier and performing experimental therapeutics in mouse models. She has been an invited speaker in national and international meetings. She received awards from the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology; in 2012, she received the NCI Director's Intramural Innovation Award. In parallel, Dr. Gril has developed an interest in psychoneuroimmunology and received a master’s degree in Clinical Psychological Science from the University of Maryland in 2017. Dr. Gril wrote a clinical protocol to investigate psychological adjustment and coping strategies to optimize quality of life in patients with brain tumors, correlating psychological dispositions to immune response. This protocol is part of Dr. Terri Armstrong’s clinical protocol, in the Neuro-Oncology Branch.

In addition to her research, key aspects of Dr. Gril’s involvement in the scientific community are:

1. Mentoring: In 2017, she received the NCI Staff Scientists and Staff Clinicians Outstanding Mentor Award. She is a formal mentor for the Sallie Rosen Kaplan (SRK) Postdoctoral Fellowship program. She evaluates candidates for both the SRK and the Diversity Career Development Program (DCDP), from the NCI Center for Cancer Training.
2.  Encouraging peers to develop their potential: Dr. Gril is an active member of the CCR Staff Scientists/Staff Clinicians (SS/SC) professional development sub-committee. She also communicates her vision on personal and professional development through original articles in the SS/SC newsletter, the Dossier.
3. Fostering a culture of inclusion and work fulfillment: Inspired by social justice principles, Dr. Gril advocates for gender and racial/ethnic equity. She was elected as a SS representative for the CCR Women Scientific Advisors (WSAs). Among her accomplishments with the WSAs, Dr. Gril worked on the SS/SC survey conception and result interpretation, co-organized WSAs informational meetings, and organized a brown bag session with Jessica Hawkins from the NIH CIVIL program to dissemination information concerning the NIH anti-harassment policy.

All the activities have enabled Dr. Gril to develop a wide network and an extensive knowledge of all the resources offered by the NCI.

Kathryn Lurain, M.D., M.P.H., is an Assistant Research Physician in the HIV and AIDS Malignancy Branch at the National Cancer Institute, NIH. She received
her Masters in Global Public Health from the George Washington University School of Public Health and her medical degree from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center and fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at the National Cancer Institute. She joined the HIV/AIDS Malignancy Branch (HAMB) as an Assistant Research Physician in 2018. Dr. Lurain’s research is based in the clinic and focuses on developing new therapies for patients with HIV and virus-associated malignancies. She developed the first prospective clinical trial in primary effusion lymphoma (PEL), a rare HIV-associated non-Hodgkin lymphoma caused by the Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV). Her work helped describe the unique natural history of PEL compared to other HIV-associated lymphomas and identified the first prognostic markers in this disease. She is the principle investigator or an associate investigator on ten protocols within the HAMB. She is also an associate investigator on multiple clinical trials within the Lymphoid Malignancy Branch and the Laboratory of Immunology and Tumor Biology due to her expertise in treating patients with HIV and cancer. Given the multidisciplinary nature of her work, she has collaborative projects across Institutes within the NIH, including NIAID and NHLBI. During her fellowship training at the NCI she received the Herb Kotz Exemplary Oncologist Award and was chosen to be the Senior Chief Fellow. Upon graduation she was recruited by senior NCI leadership to be the Associate Program Director for the Hematology and Oncology Clinical Fellowship and serves as a teacher and mentor to the clinical fellows. Dr. Lurain is also working with other early career physicians within the Clinical Center to found a group focused on the specific issues facing female clinicians when seeking career advancement at the NIH. Given her clinical research across multiple Branches and Institutes, Dr. Lurain has a wide network of clinical connections that give her a broad perspective of the needs and challenges of clinicians at the NCI.