Lab Members

Professor

Dr. Phinney received his B.A. in Chemistry and Mathematics from the University of Vermont and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. He then completed his post-doctoral studies at the Fox Chase Cancer Center where he was awarded an American Cancer Society Fellowship to examine the transcriptional regulation of the JunB oncogene. Dr. Phinney then spent nine years at Tulane University Health Sciences Center where he advanced through the ranks to Professor of Immunology and Microbiology and Associate Director of Research for the Center for Gene Therapy. He joined Scripps Florida in 2009 and is currently a Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine.

Staff Scientist

Dr. Haga received his B.Sc. in Chemistry and Biology at Vanderbilt University and his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Clinical Immunology from The University of Alabama at Birmingham. During his doctoral studies, Dr. Haga received the Ruth L. Kirschstein NIH/NIAID Doctoral Fellowship in Immunologic Diseases and Basic Immunology. He joined the Phinney Lab in 2010 as a post-doctoral associate after completing a fellowship at the Emory Vaccine Center in the laboratory of Dr. Max D. Cooper, MD. Dr. Haga is currently a Staff Scientist and his research is focused on examining the role of microRNAs in breast cancer and development of novel small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of advanced breast cancer.

Staff Scientist

Dr. Boregowda received his B.VSc. & A.H. (equivalent to DVM) at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India in 2004 and a M.VSc. in Veterinary Pharmacology from the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Bareilly, India in 2007. He was accepted into the Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences at Tulane University School of Medicine in 2007 and relocated to Scripps Florida with Dr. Phinney in 2009. He then received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Sciences in 2013 from the Kellogg School of Science and Technology, completed post-doctoral studies in 2018 in the Phinney Lab, and now holds the position of Staff Scientist. Dr. Boregowda’s research is focused on examining the biology of niche resident skeletal stem cells and marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells and using genetics-based approaches to probe mechanisms responsible for obesity and aging-related osteoporosis.

Research Assistant

Jacqueline Strivelli received her A.S. in Biotechnology from Palm Beach State College in 2012 and her B.A. in Biology from Florida Atlantic University in 2014. She originally joined the Phinney lab as an intern and then was hired as a full-time Research Assistant in 2014. Ms. Strivelli supports many projects in the laboratory and most recently has been spearheading efforts to generate a large repository of mesenchymal stem cells isolated from the bone marrow of inbred, transgenic, and knockout mice, which the lab supplies on a fee-for-service bases to the larger research community.

Research Technician

Ana Carvalho received her B.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the University of South Wales in 2012 and her A.S. in Biotechnology from Palm State Beach College in 2016. She originally joined the lab as an intern and then was hired full-time as a Research Technician in 2017. Ms. Carvalho’s research is focused on development of novel small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of breast cancer.

Graduate Student

Cori Booker received her B.Sc. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014 after which she was accepted into the Graduate Program at the Kellogg School of Science and Technology. She joined the Phinney Lab full-time in 2016 and her research employs molecular and next generation sequencing-based approaches to probe mechanisms responsible for skeletal stem cell dysfunction in response to disuse osteopenia using an animal model of hindlimb unloading.