Dr. Petljak joined the NYU Grossman Medical School in 2023 from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where she was an EMBO Fellow. In 2021, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center designated her an Emerging Leader in Computational Oncology.  Before that, Dr. Petljak was awarded prestigious training at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where she was appointed a Fellow between 2017 and 2019. Dr. Petljak obtained her Ph.D. Biological Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 2017 at the Sanger Institute. Originally from Croatia, Dr. Petljak moved to the UK in 2009, following her high-school education in Ancient Studies, to pursue her at the time newly developed passion for Human Genetics over a bachelor’s degree at University College London.

Dr. Sarah Wilcox-Adelman is a Lab Manager in the Petljak lab, where she explores cell-intrinsic and environmental factors contributing to mutagenesis, along with the underlying mechanisms of DNA damage, repair, and replication. She employs in vitro and in vivo models in conjunction with DNA sequencing to investigate these processes.

In her previous position at the Matrix Biology Institute, Dr. Wilcox-Adelman served as the Senior Scientist to expand therapeutic uses for the glycosaminoglycan hyaluronan. Dr. Wilcox-Adelman received her doctoral degree in Physiology and Cell Biology from Albany Medical College and completed her postdoctoral training at the Cutaneous Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School where she received an NIH-Individual NRSA Award.

Luka Culibrk is a Bioinformatician in the Petljak Lab, developing computational infrastructure for uncovering sources and mechanisms of mutagenesis in human tissues and cancer using next-generation sequencing technologies. During his PhD, he worked on detecting somatic copy number variation using Illumina and Oxford Nanopore sequencing and uncovering patterns of chromosomal instability in human metastatic cancer. He retains some muscle memory of using a pipette from his undergraduate days, but exercise caution in his vicinity should you witness him actually using one.

Luka has a PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of British Columbia concurrently with joining the Petljak Lab in 2023. Previously, he completed his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry at the University of British Columbia in 2017. In his free time, Luka enjoys rock climbing, hiking and everything in-between. He also enjoys reading, playing chess and gaming.

Fahad is a Research Scientist, focusing on how cancer-cell intrinsic mutagenic processes are initiated and regulated, with a goal to exploit this knowledge toward identifying new therapeutic targets. With extensive experience in cancer biology, Fahad brings a comprehensive perspective on the interplay of cellular processes in cancer development and evolution, which he now applies to understand cell and molecular mechanisms of mutagenic processes in cancer within the Petljak lab.

Since his Master’s degree at University College London, Fahad’s research has spanned multiple countries. His postdoctoral studies at Johannes Kepler University in Austria explored cellular senescence and its link to prostate tumor innervation. Prior to that, he also completed postdoctoral training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, studying autophagy and ferroptosis mechanisms. Fahad’s PhD thesis from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, validated novel tumor suppressor genes in colorectal cancer.

Johanna is a Research Scientist in the Petljak Lab where she investigates the consequences of mutagenic chemical and environmental exposures on human DNA.

Johanna was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the lab of Dr. Jan Vijg at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York after her doctoral thesis on aging and epigenome of the killifish at the Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany. During her postdoc, she investigated the accumulation of mutations with age and across species with different lifespans. Johanna also contributed to the development of novel methods for sequencing of single DNA molecules.

Isabella is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Petljak Lab. She is leveraging mutational signature readouts to investigate functional impacts of individual mutational processes on cancer cell evolution, using a combination of patient data analyses and in vitro and in vivo experiments.

She completed her PhD in Medical Science in 2023 from University of Cambridge at Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, where she investigated mechanisms of vasculogenic mimicry in various solid tumor types. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked as a Research Technician at the New York Genome Center for three years investigating mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis after obtaining her BSc in Biochemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Arinze is a Postdoctoral Fellow studying how emerging industrial and pollution-related environmental exposures affect genomic DNA and cancer risk through experimental and computational methods. Arinze’s expertise spans human physiology, cell biology, genetics, bioinformatics, and genomics. During his Ph.D. studies, Arinze applied functional genomics technologies at single-cell and bulk levels to uncover stem cell dynamics during muscle regeneration. Arinze also developed 3D-STARRseq, a novel genomic technology for the functional analysis of chromatin interactions.

Arinze completed his Ph.D. in Cell Biology (with a Computational Biology and Bioinformatics certificate) at Duke University in 2025. Before this, he received his Master of Science degree in Molecular Genetics and Diagnostics from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom and his Bachelor of Science degree in Physiology from the University of Lagos in Nigeria. Outside the lab, Arinze enjoys spending time with his family, playing tennis and board games, singing and cooking.

Jacob is an MD/PhD student at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. In the Petljak Lab, Jacob investigates the molecular mechanisms of mutagenesis of APOBEC cytosine deaminases in cancer. He is also interested in integrating genomic technologies to understand the effects of genetic variation on cellular states and is passionate about increasing access to molecular pathology tools for cancer diagnostics.

In 2020, Jacob graduated from the University of Rochester with Computational Biology and Chemistry degrees. He spent two years investigating pediatric brain cancers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and completed a research project at the Princess Máxima Center in Utrecht, The Netherlands, receiving a Fulbright-Netherland American Foundation grant. Jacob enjoys throwing dinner parties and exploring the city’s many parks with his friends.

Fiona is a PhD student at the Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences. In the Petljak Lab, she is studying the effects of environmental and chemical mutagens on human DNA in order to identify mutational signatures. She previously worked as an Assistant Research Scientist in the Wong Lab at NYULMC, where she studied epigenetic programs promoting tumorigenesis in lung squamous cell carcinoma, and strategies to re-sensitize treatment resistant lung adenocarcinomas. Fiona graduated from Oberlin College in 2020 as a John F. Oberlin Scholar, with majors in Africana Studies and Biology. In her down time, she enjoys snowboarding, cooking, and playing board games with friends.

Joyce is an MSc student at the NYU Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, studying Biomedical Informatics. She is using machine learning to investigate certain forms of cancer cell mutagenesis under investigation in the lab. In 2024, she graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Data Science, where she worked as a Research Assistant, developing and testing a model to identify shape motifs in Salmonella and E. coli sequences. In her free time, Joyce enjoys playing the piano, dabbling in writing and painting, and binge-watching TV shows with friends.

Jasmina is pursuing her undergraduate studies at NYU, majoring in biology. She is interested in the genetic mechanisms of diseases, focusing on the mechanisms related to cancer cell mutagenesis in the Petljak lab. She has previously conducted research in neurobiological disorders at Mount Sinai. Beyond the lab, she enjoys playing and coaching tennis, biking around Central Park, visiting the beach, and traveling to tropical destinations.

Having previously worked with Dr. Petljak at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Jackson joined Dr. Petljak’s lab to pursue his interest in leveraging single-cell RNA sequencing technologies to understand the impact of cancer driver mutations on cell circuits and tissue microenvironments. He is also interested in using machine learning techniques to support clinical decision-making.

In 2023, Jackson graduated from Harvard College with honors in Statistics: Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and a secondary in Computer Science. Jackson is applying to MD-PhD programs while he moves to the UK and completes his MSc degree in Health Data Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In his free time, Jackson likes running with his two bernese mountain dogs and kitesurfing.