Current Lab Members

Scott H. Olejniczak, Ph.D.

Dr. Olejniczak received his Ph.D. in cancer biology in 2008 from SUNY Buffalo, Roswell Park Graduate Division. He then went on to work in the lab of Craig Thompson, M.D. at the University at Pennsylvania and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as a post-doctoral fellow. In 2015 the Olejniczak Lab opened its doors at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and has focused on examining the physiological importance of RNA and RNA binding proteins in immune cells, stem cells, and cancer.

Colin Chavel, Ph.D.

Mackenzie Honikel, M.S. (Ph.D. student)

Mackenzie received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from SUNY Binghamton in 2016 where she began working on the development of point-of-care medical devices for the rapid quantification of disease-related biomarkers. She went on to pursue her M.S. from Arizona State University where she worked on developing electrochemical-based biosensors for measuring serum levels of breast cancer related biomarkers such as HER2. She began her current position in the Olejniczak lab in 2018 where she is investigating the ability of co-stimulatory signals, such as CD28, to improve CAR-T cell therapy for multiple myeloma. 

Anand Sharda, M.S. (Ph.D. student)

Anand received his MS in Cancer Sciences from SUNY Buffalo, Roswell Park Graduate Division in 2017 where he studied high-throughput gene expression changes from metastatic renal cell carcinoma patients who had been treated with monocyte-derived dendritic cell vaccines combined with IL-2 and IFNα-2a  in a completed phase II clinical trial. Upon completion of his MS Anand began pursuing an MBA at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University specializing in finance in 2018. Concurrently, Anand is interested in understanding the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie leukemic stem cell persistence in acute myelogenous leukemia, and the contribution of the RNA-binding protein, ARS2, in this process.

Caitlin James (Ph.D. student)