Meet Our Team

Michael Heinrich, M.D. is currently a Professor of Medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University. He earned his medical degree in 1984 from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and completed both his residency training and Hematology and Medical Oncology fellowship at OHSU. His primary research interest is in the development of novel tyrosine kinase inhibitors for treatment of human cancers. Dr. Heinrich's research includes both pre-clinical identification of novel molecular targets and testing of new agents in the laboratory and the clinic. 

 Diana Griffith has been a proteomics Senior Research Assistant in Dr. Heinrich's lab since 1999. After mutations in C-KIT, PDGFRa, or K-RAS are found, Diana's responsibility is to express these mutant kinases in eukaryotic systems and use experimental kinase inhibitor drugs to see if kinase activity can be lessened in a dose that is therapeutically achievable. She also performs proliferation assays using the same group of inhibitor compounds on cells in culture that have naturally occurring tyrosine kinase mutations. Furthermore, she lyses and processes human tumor in order to visualize through Immunoprecipitation and Western Blot analysis the presence of constitutively active tyrosine kinases. Diana is from Southern California and has a BS in Cell and Developmental Biology from UC Santa Barbara.  

Homma Khosroyani graduated from the University of Washington in 2016 with a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental biology and a minor in microbiology.  She is currently pursuing a PhD in the OHSU Cancer Biology graduate program.  Homma's dissertation project focuses on using in vitro models to profile and investigate primary and secondary tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance in PDGFRA-mutant GIST.

Ajia Town is a Research Associate in Dr. Heinrich's laboratory and has been with the lab since August 2001. She received a BS in Biology/Genetic Engineering and a minor in Chemistry from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville in 1999.  Ajia is responsible for sequencing, tissue culture, site-directed mutagenesis, DNA cloning, protein expression studies testing drug sensitivity, as well as administrative duties and  maintaining the lab's website. She enjoys spending time in the outdoors with her family.

Dr. Limin Zhu was born and raised in China. She came to the U.S. for undergraduate education at Wesleyan College where she majored in Biology and minored in French, Psychology, and Neuroscience. Through a summer research program at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston during her junior year, she discovered a passion for biomedical research. Limin then went to graduate school at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center where she focused on translational research exploring the mechanisms underlying pulmonary metastasis of osteosarcoma. She received her Ph.D. in cancer biology in 2014 and her M.D. from the University of Texas McGovern Medical School in 2018. She completed internal medicine residency training at Baylor College of Medicine and continued to participate in clinical research in NTRK fusions and POLE mutation in solid tumors. Limin is interested in sarcoma, particularly GIST, and hopes to further broaden her perspective and skills in clinical cancer research during fellowship. She would like to pursue a career in academia and lead translational research and clinical trials that identify novel targets in sarcoma for therapeutic interventions. Outside medicine she enjoys travelling, cooking, and gardening.