Program Leadership

Principal Investigator

Besim Ogretmen 

Besim Ogretmen, Ph.D.

Dr. Ogretmen holds the Endowed Chair in Lipidomics & Drug Discovery and is the Director of the Lipidomics Shared Resource at the Hollings Cancer Center at MUSC. His research is focused on deciphering the regulation and function of bioactive sphingolipids, specifically ceramide and sphingosine-1-phosphate, in cancer development/progression and therapy.

Internal Advisory Committee

Thomas Keane, M.D.

External Advisory Committee

Yixing Jiang, M.D., Ph.D., University of Maryland

Richard N. Kolesnick, M.D., Memorial Sloan Kettering

Natasha Kyprianou, Ph.D., University of Kentucky

Michael Nishimura, Ph.D., Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center

PPG Investigators

Project 1

Christina Voelkel Johnson, Ph.D., Project Co-leader
James Norris, Ph.D., Project Co-leader
Michael Lilly, M.D.
David Marshall, M.D.
Marissa Wolfe, D.V.M.
Ping Lu

Project 2

Besim Ogretmen, Ph.D., Project Leader
Carl Atkinson, Ph.D.
Beichu Guo, Ph.D.
Kyla Baron
Jisun Kim
Shanmugam Selvam, Ph.D.
Salih Gencer, Ph.D.

Project 3

Michael Lilly, M.D., Project Leader

Core 1

Besim Ogretmen, Ph.D., Core Director
Jason Pierce, MS
Zdzislaw Szulc, Ph.D.
Richard Drake, Ph.D.
Aiping Bai, Ph.D., MSCR
Peggi Angel, Ph.D.
Barbara Rembies
Silva Stojnova
Benjamin A. Neely

Core 2

Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D., Core Director
Kelley M. Argraves, Ph.D.
Kristi Helke, Ph.D., D.V.M.
Yuan Shao, M.D., Ph.D.
Myra Soloschensk

Core 3

Hong Li, Ph.D.
Elizabeth Hill, Ph.D.

Core 4

Andie Edwards, Program Manager
Jill Ussery