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About the Department of Pharmacology & Immunology

Home to award-winning scientists advancing pharmacology and immunology through innovative research, education, and discovery at MUSC.

Our faculty members hold three South Carolina Centers of Excellence Chairs, and our funded programs emphasize the department’s strengths in signaling & drug development.

Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology & Immunology
Robert K. Stuart, M.D. Distinguished Chair in Hematology/Oncology
Co-scientific director of Oncology and Immunotherapy Programs, Center for Cellular Therapy
Co-leader, Cancer Immunology program, MUSC Hollings Cancer Center

Dr. Shikhar Mehrotra completed his Ph.D. in Immunology in India and post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, CT. He joined MUSC in 2006, where his research focuses on understanding T cell biology for improving immunotherapy of cancer.

Dr. Mehrotra has held numerous leadership roles at MUSC alongside his highly productive research career. He is currently the co-scientific director of Oncology and Immunotherapy Programs for the Center for Cellular Therapy, an FDA registered cGMP level facility with capabilities ranging from immunomonitoring of patient samples to manufacturing of cellular products for immunotherapy.

He also currently serves as co-leader of the Cancer Immunology program at the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, a role in which he has increased awareness of the cutting-edge immunotherapy developments happening at Hollings and nurtured collaborations to move innovative ideas forward.
He has served on the College of Medicine’s Research Oversight Committee since its inception in 2020.

mail mehrotr@musc.edu View Faculty Profile open_in_new View Research Profile open_in_new Department of Pharmacology & Immunology arrow_forward

Peggi Angel, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Focus: Systems-based Approaches to Heart Valve Development and Disease		 View Angel Lab
Lauren E. Ball, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Focus: Role of O-GlcNAc Glycosylation in the Regulation of Insulin/IGF-1 Receptor Signal Transduction Pathways		  
Jennifer R. Bethard, M.S.
Research Associate
Focus: Mass Spectrometry		  
Joe B. Blumer, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Focus: Role of G-protein Regulatory (GPR) Proteins in Mammalian Cell Division and the Immune System		  
Michael Bouchard, Ph.D.
Professor and Dean, College of Graduate Studies		  
Aguirre De Cubas, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor		  
Nathan Dolloff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Focus: Drug Discovery Focus in B and Plasma Cell Malignancies		 View Dolloff Lab
Richard R. Drake, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor
Focus: Glycoprotein Biomarkers of Cancer and Mass Spectrometry Imaging		 View Drake Lab
Scott T. Eblen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Focus: Signal Transduction in Cancer Biology		 View Eblen Lab
Leonardo M. R. Ferreira, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Focus: Designing and developing engineered immune cell therapies for autoimmune disease, cancer, and aging.		  
Xueliang Gao, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Focus: Tumorigenesis and translational oncology		 View Gao Lab
Radhika Gudi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Focus: Identifying regulatory mechanisms influencing centrosome structure & function, endocytic vesicular trafficking pathways & tumor suppression.		 View Gudi Lab
Azizul Haque, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Focus: Antigen presentation, tumor immunobiology, inflammation, CNS disorders, autoimmunity		 View Haque Lab
Wei Jiang, M.D.
Professor
Focus: HIV pathogenesis, toll-like receptor and innate immunity, sex differences in human immune responses, and lupus pathogenesis		 View Jiang Lab
Laura Kasman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Medical Education Director, Microbiology & Immunology		  
Anand Mehta, D.Phil
Professor
Focus: Biomarker discovery		 View Mehta Lab
Kengo Nozaki, MD, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Focus: Innate Sensor and Cell Death		 View Nozaki Lab
Richard O'Neil, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Focus: Immune system in disease and treatment of disease. Specifically, we are interested in the role played by T cells and in developing ways to manipulate adaptive immunity, using engineered T cells as tools for therapy and for discovery.		  
Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor
Focus: Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation, cancer immune tumor microenvironment, inflammation, alarmins, T lymphocyte biology		 View Paczesny Lab
Janardan Pandey, Ph.D.
Professor
Focus: Allotypes, Fcgamma receptor genes, ADCC, humoral immunity		 View Pandey Lab
Steven A. Rosenzweig, Ph.D.
Professor
Focus: Growth Factor Dysregulation in Cancer		 View Rosenzweig Lab 
Michael Schmidt, Ph.D.
Professor
Focus: Controlling acquisition of hospital acquired infections, pandemic preparations and disaster preparedness, bacterial pathogenesis		 View Schmidt Lab
Kenneth D. Tew, Ph.D., DSc
Professor
Focus: Cancer Drug Development		 View Tew Lab
Stephen Tomlinson, Ph.D.
Professor
Focus: The complement system in inflammation, alloimmunity, cancer immunity and CNS injury.
 View Tomlinson Lab
Chenthamarakshan Vasu, Ph.D.
Professor
Focus: Mucosal immunology, gut microbiota-host interactions, immune tolerance mechanisms, and targeted therapies for autoimmunity and inflammation.		 View Vasu Lab
Haizhen Wang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Focus: Cell cycle proteins in cancer progression		 View Wang Lab
Zhiwei Ye, Ph.D.
Research Associate Professor
Focus: Redox and drug development in cancer		  
Jie Zhang, Ph.D.
Research Associate Professor
Focus: Redox and drug development in cancer		  
Hailong Zhang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Focus: Enteric Nervous System, Host-Pathogen Interaction, Infection, Inflammation and Cancer		 View Zhang Lab