Current Members

Marcus D. Goncalves, MD, MSE, PhD

Director, Systemic Metabolism Research

Associate Professor

Lab head

Marcus is a physician scientist at NYU Langone Health in beautiful New York City. His lab is focused on the effects of diet and cancer on the host tissues that regulate systemic nutrient metabolism. As a practicing endocrinologist, he has helped to develop therapeutic and dietary strategies to modulate systemic glucose and insulin levels in patients with obesity, diabetes, and cancer. MG’s clinical practice focuses on the care of patients with metabolic diseases like insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, low testosterone, and complications from cancer and cancer therapy like cachexia. Come watch me present

Lucas Kniess Debarba, PhD

Research Associate

Lab member since 2024

Lucas is a research associate and lab manager of the Gonçalves Lab. He holds a PhD in Physiology from the University of São Paulo and oversees the laboratory's operation and maintenance. Lucas also provides technical support and consultation to researchers and collaborators, helping to design and run metabolic phenotyping experiments, including metabolic chamber, bomb calorimetry, metabolic tests, and rodent surgery.

Ezequiel Dantas, MD, PhD

Instructor

Lab member since 2019

Ezequiel is a physician and scientist with a PhD in Immunology. He is studying the effects of dietary interventions on the immune system using mouse models and human samples. Cancer is another example where diet can influence immunity so Ezequiel is studying the crosstalk among tumor cells, the immune system, and the regulators of systemic metabolism that ultimately lead to the wasting syndrome called cachexia. This research has also sparked his interest in finding and validating early biomarkers for cachexia and lung cancer.

Maira Di Tano, PhD

Post-Doctoral FelLow

Lab member since 2022

Maira is a postdoctoral fellow. She obtained her PhD in Molecular Oncology from the European School of Molecular Medicine (SEMM) in Milan (Italy). In Goncalves lab, she is interested in identifying cancer metabolic vulnerabilities, focusing on colorectal and pancreatic cancer. Specifically, Maira is studying how cancer genetic alterations leads to specific metabolic dependencies and how nutrients, in particular fructose, impact on tumor progression and therapy response, with the ultimate goal to identify novel thera-peutic targets for the treatment of these aggressive tumor types.

Shiri Li, BM, PhD

Research Associate

Lab member since 2021

Carolina Echeverría, PhD

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Lab member since 2022

Carolina is a biotechnologist with a PhD in Biomedicine from Universidad de los Andes, Chile. She is studying how fructose can induce metabolic adaptations in prostate and colorectal cancer overtime. Specifically, Carolina is focused on the molecular mechanism related to glucose transporters and fructolysis pathway with the aim to extrapolate these findings into aggressiveness biomarkers for prostate and colorectal cancer.

Jack Sanford, PhD

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Lab member since 2023

Jack is a postdoctoral fellow who received his PhD in genetics and molecular biology from UNC Chapel Hill. In the Goncalves lab, he is investigating how lung-derived secreted proteins influence cancer cachexia and whole-body metabolism. Given that these proteins influence weight loss, blocking their associated pathways could prove to be a useful strategy for the treatment of cancer cachexia, while activating them could also benefit patients who are struggling with obesity

Alexander Emmanuelli, PhD

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Lab member since 2024

Isaac Nathoo

MD-PhD Student

Lab member since 2023

Sarah Stewart

MD Student

Lab member since 2023

Erica Nagase

MD Student

Lab member since 2022

Jonathan Gao

Research Technician

Lab member since 2022

Jonathan is a Research Technician who earned his BA in Chemistry, with a concentration in Biochemistry, from CUNY Hunter College. In the Goncalves Lab, he investigates the effects of dietary fructose on villus elongation and explores potential therapeutic interventions to mitigate the physiological consequences of fructose consumption.