Lab Members

Philip Debbas graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2018 with a bachelor of science in molecular environmental biology. Debbas has previous experience working at an embryogenesis laboratory assisting in in-vitro fertilization. Debbas joined the Cedars-Sinai F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute in September 2019 as a research associate. His role includes serology, DNA isolation, data gathering, and data integration as part of the Serology, Genotyping and Database teams in the MIRIAD group.

Rhiannon Dutra-Clarke received her bachelor’s degree in public health sciences from the University of California, Irvine (UCI). During that time, she studied stem cell-based therapies in a rat model for the treatment of retinal degenerative diseases. She currently works as a research associate at Cedars-Sinai for the F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute. Her role includes performing serology, molecular laboratory techniques and data gathering in the MIRIAD group.

Ace Esplago joined Cedars-Sinai's inflammatory bowel disease research team in 2019 after attending the master's in biology program at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). He also obtained his bachelor's degree in biology with a concentration in molecular biology and biotechnology from CSUF. During his time at CSUF, he was involved in research on the antibiotic-resistant strain of Acinetobacter baumannii. His role includes assisting in protein display experiments to identify inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) specific epithelial antigens, in addition to novel genomic assays to functionally characterize the regulatory profile of IBD genetic variation.

Rene Gaeta received his bachelor’s degree in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics in 2021 from UCLA. During his time there, he studied a family of tailed bacteriophages, Myoviridae, to identify novel relationships between various hosts through bioinformatic analyses at the nucleotide, amino acid and protein levels. Additionally, he has experience with annotating genes in bacteriophages using various bioinformatic programs. Rene joined the Cedars-Sinai F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute in November 2021 as a research associate. His role includes serology, genotyping and data gathering in the MIRIAD group.

Richard Garcia graduated from California State University, Long Beach, with a bachelor degree in kinesiology. Richard began his career working in a clinical laboratory as both a phlebotomist and lab technician. He first joined the field of research at MemorialCare, where he worked as a clinical research coordinator on studies focusing on cystic fibrosis. Richard joined the Cedars-Sinai F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute in early 2022, where he and his fellow peers have pursued inflammatory bowel disease research and cures.

Victoria Garcia received her bachelor’s degree in biology with a concentration in public health from Marist College located in Poughkeepsie, New York. During her time there, she focused her capping project on the gut microbiome and its potential link to beta-amyloid plaque formation in Alzheimer’s patients. Additionally, she worked full time as a certified nursing assistant at a skilled nursing facility from 2019-2021. Victoria joined Cedars-Sinai’s F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute in November 2021 as a research associate.

Mary Hanna received her bachelor's degree in biological sciences from the University of California, Irvine in 2017. There, she studied the underlying mechanism of neuroinflammation via microglial activation in patients with traumatic brain injuries. Hanna joined the Cedars-Sinai F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute in August 2019. Currently, she works as a clinical research associate in the MIRIAD group procuring surgical tissue samples.

Abdul Khan received his bachelor’s degree in cell, molecular, and developmental biology from the University of California, Riverside (UCR). During his time there, he studied the complex courtship behavior of hummingbird species, allelic variations and sequence polymorphisms in spider silk genes, and RNA phosphatase PIR-1 modulation of dicer-dependent and dicer-independent argonaute pathways in C. elegans. Khan joined the Cedars-Sinai F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute in 2022. He currently works as a clinical research associate in the MIRIAD Biobank.

Angela Mujukian, MD joined the Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute (IBIRI) and MIRIAD team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center under Jonathan Braun, MD. Angela’s research focuses on personalized surgical medicine and patients’ post-surgery outcomes of IBD in surgery. Mujukian received her medical and undergraduate degrees from St. George’s University and UCLA, and shortly after served as a postgraduate clinical research fellow in the Cedars-Sinai Division of Colorectal Surgery under Phillip Fleshner, MD and Karen Zaghiyan, MD.

Maria Salas joined the Cedars-Sinai F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel and Immunobiology Research Institute as a clinical research coordinator in 2003. Salas began her career at Cedars-Sinai as part of the Youth Employment and Development program, which is designed for high school juniors interested in careers in the medical field. Prior to her current position, Salas worked in the department of Medical Genetics as a research project assistant. She received her LVN license from American Career College and is a certified phlebotomist. She also graduated from a two-year Spanish/English medical translator program at Mount San Antonio College and speaks fluent Spanish. Currently, Salas works as a clinical research coordinator in the MIRIAD group.