Taishi Yonezawa

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Margaret (“Peggy”) Goodell’s lab at Baylor College of Medicine. Before joining her lab in April of 2021, I received my Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo, Japan. My Ph.D. thesis work has established a therapeutic approach to hematopoietic tumors targeting RUNX1 in the lab of Dr. Toshio Kitamura and Dr. Susumu Goyama. The work spanned bioengineering and computational biology and has the potential to save patients if the approach is introduced to the clinic. During my PhD., I earned the Dean’s Award (2021) and the American Society of Hematology the Abstract Achievement Award (2019). On a personal note, the primary motivation behind my pursuit of a career in blood cancer research is that I was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in high school. I was fortunate to be cured by a bone marrow transplant. Furthermore, having been a cancer patient myself, I currently participate in providing mental health support for cancer patients.