Meet the Team!

We are currently looking for enthusiastic and motivated individuals to join our team. We welcome applicants with diverse scientific backgrounds who are interested to learn about cancer cell biology and genomics. We are highly invested in mentoring individuals in our group so that they can develop both scientifically and professionally. 
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Please email your CV and a description of your interest in our work to Dr. Julia Maxson.

Julia Maxson​
Ph.D., Principal Investigator

Dr. Maxson pursued her undergraduate studies at Scripps College and then completed her Ph.D. in Cell Biology at OHSU in the area of protein trafficking and processing. As a postdoc, Dr. Maxson identified new therapeutic targets in leukemia in the laboratories of Jeff Tyner, and Brian Druker. Notably, she discovered targetable mutations in CSF3R (the receptor for the cytokine GCSF) in the majority of patients with chronic neutrophilic leukemia. Dr. Maxson then moved to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to pursue the mentored portion of her K99 Pathway to Independence Award on the biochemical mechanisms of aberrant CSF3R activation in leukemia. In 2016, Dr. Maxson moved to the Knight Cancer Institute to establish her laboratory with a focus on leukemia evolution at the genetic and epigenetic level.

Hunter Blaylock
B.S.,  Research Assistant 2

Born and raised in Eugene, OR, Hunter received his B.S. in Human Physiology with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Oregon in 2021. As an undergraduate student, he volunteered in Dr. Carrie McCurdy’s Molecular Metabolism and Endocrinology lab where he studied obesity and its impacts on metabolic health. He wrote an honor’s thesis on the effects of overexpression of the p55a regulatory subunit of PI3K in the development of adipose tissue insulin resistance. While working with PI3K, an established oncogene, Hunter found an interest in cancer biology. He is very excited to learn about the causes of myeloid malignancies and how biology can be exploited to develop treatments that improve the lives of patients. In the next few years, Hunter hopes to make a decision as to whether he wants to pursue an MD/Ph.D. or a Ph.D.

Hanqian Carlson
Ph.D.., Senior Research Associate

Hanqian Carlson is originally from China and she got her Ph.D. from the University of North Dakota. She has lived in Portland for more than 20 years, during which time  she has worked as Postdoctoral Scholar or Senior Research Associate at OHSU and Shriners Hospital. Her research background is in cancer, protein trafficking, and lncRNA. She is very excited to join the Knight Cancer Institute and work in Dr. Maxson’s lab to study myeloid malignancies. In the Maxson lab, Dr. Carlson is now working on GFP tagging endogenous human proteins using a Crispr/Cas9 strategy.

Sarah Carratt
Ph.D., Postdoctoral Scholar

A Seattle-native, Dr. Carratt is thrilled to be back in the Pacific Northwest as a member of the Maxson lab. Dr. Carratt’s passion for research began as an undergraduate at Loyola Marymount University, where she developed an analytical method to use spiders as bioindicators. She continued to investigate environmental toxicants while obtaining her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation research focused on the inhalation toxicity of naphthalene. Sarah is now working on the role of SETBP1 in myeloid malignancies. Her research is funded by a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship through the NIH National Cancer Institute. 

Lucie Darmusey
M.S.,  Ph.D.,  Postdoctoral Scholar

Born and raised in Bordeaux, France, Dr. Darmusey is very excited to be a member of the Maxson Lab for this new chapter of her life. Her interest for genetics started back in high school and continues throughout her studies. She obtained her license in Health Biology and her Master's in Cellular and Molecular Genetics at the University of Bordeaux. During her Master’s, she joined Frederic Chibon’s lab to study leiomyosarcomas genetics. Chibon’s lab then moved to the Cancer research center of Toulouse, France, where Lucie followed the team as a PhD student. Her Ph.D. project was focused on the characterization of the driver axes of leiomyosarcomas oncogenesis. Thanks to this work she became interested into the role of epigenetic regulators alteration in cancers which she will now investigate in myeloid malignancies by studying the role of ASXL1 mutation.  

Garth Kong
M.S.,  Computational Biologist

Garth graduated from the Biochemistry and Biophysics program at Oregon State University, then received his Master's degree in Bioinformatics at the University of Oregon. While in graduate school, he worked with Karen Guillemin's lab in Eugene, OR, and then interned under Dr. Chris Seidel in the Genomics department at the Stowers Institute. As a core bioinformatician, he collaborated with Dr. Nicolas Rohner's Lab to study the genetic adaptations of the cavefish Astayanx mexicanus. In the Maxson Lab, he provides bioinformatics support to all lab members and writes software to analyze sequencing datasets. Garth is always interested in the latest bioinformatics tools and trends, and he enjoys working with biologists at all levels of the computational spectrum.

​Breanna Maniaci
B.S., Graduate Student

Breanna was born and raised in Alaska, where she attended the University of Alaska Anchorage. There she graduated in 2017 with a B.S. in Chemistry with a minor in Biology. During this time, she studied the protein structure and function of COMMD1 in mammalian copper trafficking under Dr. Jason Burkhead. Through her undergraduate experiences she took an interest in science applied to human disease. She is now a graduate student in the Cancer Biology program at OHSU, and looks forward to expanding her knowledge of myeloid malignancies and the broader topic of cancer.

​Thai Nguyen
B.S., Computational  Biology Intern

Thai graduated from the University of Florida with a B.S. in microbiology, where she studied environmental coliphages in Dr. James Maruniak’s lab. Afterwards, she worked on the genetic improvement of biofuel crops and was a bioenergy team member on the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored ROGUE Project. During her time at the University of Florida, she developed a passion for programming and its interdisciplinary applications. Thai is now a graduate student in the Bioinformatics and Genomics Master’s Program at the University of Oregon and a computational biology intern at OHSU. She is also a developer of CITE-Viz, an interactive, user-friendly CITE-seq data exploration app designed to help biologists profile cell populations of interest. In the Maxson Lab, she works on pipelines and tools to analyze sequencing data and enjoys providing bioinformatics support to everyone. Thai is always open to learning new things and looks forward to expanding her knowledge of blood cancers.

Sarah Taylor
B.S.,  Graduate Student

Sarah graduated in 2014 from the University of North Carolina with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Chemistry. As an undergrad, she completed an Honors Thesis studying the effect of an amino-acid cocktail-based depletion method on dopamine transients under the mentorship of Dr. Donita Robinson. After graduation, Sarah moved to Roanoke, Virginia and joined the lab of Dr. John Chappell at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech. During this time, she was a lab manager and research technician, studying the role of pericytes in development and disease. Now a graduate student in the Program in Biomedical Sciences at OHSU, she is excited to be a part of the Maxson Lab studying the underlying causes and potential treatments for myeloid malignancies.