Jude Khatib

Postdoc

Jude’s passion for cancer research started during her undergraduate studies in biochemistry at California State University, Long Beach, where she was first exposed to cancer research, studying signaling pathways in prostate cancer using a range of molecular techniques. The excitement of that work solidified her decision to pursue a graduate degree in biomedical sciences. In 2020, she began her PhD at Penn State College of Medicine in the lab of Dr. George-Lucian Moldovan, where she focused on dissecting mechanisms of DNA damage repair pathways that could be targeted to sensitize cancer cells to chemotherapy. Her work identified PARP10, a translesion DNA synthesis (TLS) protein, as a target to re-sensitize BRCA2-deficient cells to chemotherapy through the accumulation of single-stranded DNA gaps. Looking to expand her expertise, Jude decided to join the Aird lab in 2026 as a postdoctoral fellow. Her project investigates how BRCA deficiency alters the metabolic profile of ovarian cancer cells, and how these metabolic changes, in turn, reshape the tumor immune microenvironment.

Jude’s email: jkhatib@wistar.org