Omar Lab Members

Mohamed Omar, M.D
Principal Investigator
Mohamed.Omar@csmc.edu

0000-0002-8068-1920
mohamed-omar-md
Cedars-Sinai Profile
TheOmarLab

Mohamed received his M.D. from the School of Medicine at Mansoura University, Egypt. He then trained in computational genomics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and in computational pathology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University (Weill Cornell Medicine) in the lab of Dr. Luigi Marchionni.

In 2022 he joined the faculty of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine as Assistant Professor of Research, and from 2023 he also served as Lead Scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His work over these years focused on predicting cancer phenotypes from histopathology and multi-omics data, and on using biological structure to constrain machine learning models so that they generalize beyond the cohort they were trained on.

He moved to Los Angeles in November 2024 to start his independent lab, and is Assistant Professor in the Department of Computational Biomedicine and Research Scientist in the Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai.

Priyanka Vasanthakumari, Ph.D.
Research Data Scientist
Priyanka.Vasanthakumari@cshs.org

priyanka-vasanthakumari-phd-68492789
priyanka9991

Priyanka received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2022. Her thesis focused on deep learning-based detection of oral and skin cancer using multi-spectral Autofluorescence Lifetime Imaging (maFLIM). Subsequently, she joined Argonne National Laboratory as Postdoctoral Fellow, where she focused on developing machine learning models for predicting anti-cancer drug responses.

In the Omar lab, Priyanka is working on developing multimodal risk assessment tools for patients with prostate cancer using multiparametric MRI imaging (mpMRI) and digitized histopathology slides of biopsy specimens.

Maryam Ranjpour, Ph.D.
Project Scientist
Maryam.RanjpourAghmiouni@cshs.org

0000-0002-4828-9099
maryam-ranjpour-63884152
Maryam's Citations

Maryam received her Ph.D. in Medical Biotechnology in 2018 before starting her postdoctoral research in immunology and molecular oncology at UT Tyler and Cedars‑Sinai, respectively. With over 13 years of research experience, her work spans cancer targeted therapy, biomarker discovery, and translational studies in prostate and bladder cancer.

In the Omar Lab, Maryam applies her expertise in proteomics, molecular assays, and advanced 3D co‑culture models for prostate cancer bone metastases to study the molecular and spatial interactions within the microenvironment of both primary tumors and metastatic sites

Marta Osrodek, Ph.D.
Project Scientist
Marta.Osrodek@cshs.org

martaosrodek

Marta received her Ph.D. from the Department of Molecular Biology of Cancer at the Medical University of Lodz, Poland, where she investigated melanoma drug resistance, genome stability, and therapeutic targeting of the unfolded protein response pathway. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Moscat and Diaz-Meco Laboratories studying the mechanisms by which cancer cells adapt to the tumor microenvironment.

In the Omar Lab, Marta applies her expertise in cancer biology and tumor microenvironment research to support the development and validation of computational models for cancer risk assessment.

Itzel Valencia
PhD Student
Itzel.Valencia@cshs.org

Itzel first worked as a Research Specialist in the Multi-parametric In Situ Imaging (MISI) lab, then as a Staff Scientist in the Division of Computational Pathology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University (Weill Cornell Medicine).

Currently, she is a PhD candidate in the PhD in Health Artificial Intelligence program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she develops robust computational methods and pipelines for disease phenotype prediction and patient prognostication using multiomics and histopathology imaging data.

Bryan Magana
U-GROW Summer Intern
Subsequently: Masters Student @ Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Bryan received his B.S. in Health Science with minors in Chemistry and Biology from CSU Channel Islands. A first-generation college student, he gained clinical experience through the COPE Health Scholars Program and conducted oncology research at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Bryan is now pursuing a Master of Health Science in Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with plans to earn an M.D./Ph.D. and build a career combining clinical oncology with cancer research.

Anh Le
she/her
U-GROW Summer Intern
Anh.Le2@cshs.org

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Anh received her B.S. in Computer Science from California State University, Long Beach, where she also conducted NSF-funded research on magnetic materials using Magneto-Optic Kerr Effect (MOKE) techniques.

In the Omar Lab, Anh is developing deep learning-based segmentation frameworks for automated prostate cancer grading from whole-slide images (WSIs), leveraging AI and advanced imaging analysis to improve tumor region identification and support precision oncology research.