Tony Godfrey, Ph.D. 
Principal Investigator
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Dr. Godfrey obtained his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy Degrees from Brunel University in London England. His Ph.D. thesis work was performed under the guidance of Dr. Colin Hill at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Post-doctoral training was obtained at the University of California at San Francisco in the laboratories of Joe Gray and Ron Jensen.

Liqiang Xi, M.D.
Research Assistant Professor
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Dr. Xi graduated from the Harbin Medical University in China. He received a Master of Public Health degree from the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine (current Center for Disease Control and Prevention of China) and a Master of Information Sciences from University of Pittsburgh. Postdoctoral training was obtained at the University of California at Berkley and at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Xi is interested in cutting-edge biotechnologies and bioinformatics for cancer research. Current projects include molecular marker discovery and molecular detection of cancer present in lymph nodes and blood using quantitative real-time PCR and microarrays.

Virginia R. Litle, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery
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Dr. Litle graduated from the Brown-Dartmouth Program-in-Medicine and completed an internship and residency in General Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Litle subsequently completed a Surgical Oncology fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center followed by a Cardiothoracic residency also at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Litle has extensive experience in thoracoscopic/laparoscopic (minimally invasive) esophagectomy, laparoscopic anti-reflux surgery and repair of giant paraesophageal hernias and minimally invasive palliation of advanced airway and esophageal malignancies including use of stents and photodynamic therapy. Her translational research interests include molecular detection of occult metastatic disease in lung and esophagus cancer.

Andrew Feber, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
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Andrew obtained his Bachelors of Science degree from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. He carried out his PhD training at Institute of Cancer Research, England, investigating the genomic alterations associated with the development and progression of urological cancers, under the supervision of Prof. Colin Cooper. He joined us in September 2005 to continue his postdoctoral training.

Ivy Altomare , M.D. 

Dr. Altomare obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She then graduated with honors from New Jersey Medical School and went on to complete her residency in Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. She worked at the NIH as a research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Steven Rosenberg optimizing synthesis of a dendritic cell-based melanoma vaccine. Currently, she is a clinical fellow in Hematology-Oncology at Mount Sinai and is assisting Dr. Godfrey with a translational project to study the molecular staging of esophageal cancer.