People

Core Personnel

Xiaonan Li

Faculty Director

Xiao-Nan Li, Ph.D., M.D., is the Rachelle and Mark Gordon Endowed Professor in Cancer Research at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He joined Lurie Children’s in 2018 as director of Pediatric Xenograft Modeling at the Manne Research Institute and Professor of Pediatrics at Feinberg. Dr. Li came from Baylor College of Medicine. He actively participates in National Cancer Institute-sponsored research consortia and is one of the world’s foremost experts on pediatric xenograft modeling, which produces the most accurate recreation of how tumors in children will respond to anti-cancer drugs.

Nayereh Ghoreishi

Assistant Director

Nayereh Ghoreishi, M.S., serves as the Assistant Director of the Developmental Therapeutics Core at Northwestern University, bringing over 25 years of expertise in pharmaceutical research and development. She specializes in advancing preclinical studies into impactful clinical applications, enabling investigators to efficiently achieve their therapeutic goals through robust preclinical models and translational strategies. Nayereh’ s cross-disciplinary insights include oncology, pain research, immunoinflammatory diseases, and pharmacology. She is recognized for her leadership, teamwork, and impactful research, with multiple industry accolades. By combining scientific rigor, innovative thinking, and a collaborative approach, Nayereh empowers investigators to translate their research into transformative therapeutic solutions.

Grace Ma

Research Associate

Quanhong (Grace) has over 15 years of academic laboratory research experience. She received her PhD in the field of cell biology from Peking Union Medical College where her focus had been on the molecular mechanisms of mice spermiogenesis as well as erythropoiesis using mice model. Grace’s did her postdoc fellow training at the University of Illinois in Chicago where she focused on the function analysis of Asxl2, an enhancer of trithorax and polycomb in isolated neonatal mouse cardiomyocyte in transgenic mice. She previously worked as a research lab manager in image (MRI) translation laboratories of Dr. Zhouli Zhang at both Northwestern University and the University of California at Irvine. She is proficient in mammalian cell culture and all basic cellular and molecular techniques. She also has experience in cancer research biology and has worked with different animal models.

Victoria Bariani

Research Associate

Victoria received her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, where she characterized the effects of maternal obesity during pregnancy and on offspring development in a murine model. Her postdoctoral research was focused on the basic research of uterine fibroids pathogenesis. She has a broad background in reproductive sciences and brings experience in cellular and molecular biology techniques, animal models, primary and cell lines cell culture, organoids development and culture, and the ability to adapt to new methodologies.

Wenan Qiang

Research Associate

Wenan Qiang, MD, PhD., is a Research Professor. Wenan joined DTC in 2015 and manages the repository of PDX models. His focus has been on developing clinically relevant and molecularly profiled PDX tumor models and identifying predictive biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Yi Yang

Research Associate

Yi Yang, PhD., is Research Associate at DTC. Yi has 27 years of research expertise in 2D, 3D (spheroid/organoid), and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell culture, genomic/somatic mutation and RNAseq analysis, cell source authentication, and in vivo cancer research including PDX models.