LAUNCHPAD and IMPACT² Teams

With a highly trained research team and broad immunotherapy development expertise, our LAUNCHPAD and IMPACT² teams work closely with investigators from concept through IND-enabling planning. We develop customized workflows for antibody discovery; immune effector library design and engineering; and high-throughput functional screening to help identify lead antibody and cell therapy candidates.

Current Team

Eric L. Smith, MD, PhD
Founding Faculty Director, LAUNCHPAD & IMPACT²

Eric Smith moved to Boston after spending the early part of his career in New York. He earned his MD and PhD (Genetics and Genomic Sciences) from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he also trained as a research track resident in internal medicine. He then moved to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for medical oncology fellowship and further research training.

After his fellowship, Eric remained at Memorial Sloan Kettering as a faculty member in the Center for Cell Engineering, the Cellular Therapeutics Center, and the Myeloma Service. He later joined the Harvard medical community at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute, Mass General Brigham, and the i3 Center at the Wyss Institute. His preclinical research has led to nine awarded or pending patents, and multiple products stemming from his laboratory work have advanced to the clinic. At Dana-Farber, Eric is director of translational research for immune effector cell therapies and a principal investigator.

Outside of the lab, he enjoys biking, hiking, and swimming.

Xin Zhou, PhD
Faculty Co-Director, IMPACT²

Xin is an Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and Cancer Biology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She trained with Michael Lin as a PhD student at Stanford University and with James Wells as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.

An enthusiastic protein and cell engineer, Xin enjoys brainstorming engineering of new biomolecules to study cell signaling mechanisms and rewire cells for therapeutic applications. Xin is the recipient of the 2024 Dana-Farber Accelerator Therapeutic LEAP Award, the 2023 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the 2023 Helen Trailblazer Award, the 2022 Damon Runyon–Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists, the 2022 PEGS Protein and Antibody Engineering Summit Young Scientist Keynote honor, and the 2020 NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award. She serves as a principal investigator of an academic lab at Dana-Farber.

Anusuya Ramasubramanian, PhD
Head of Research, IMPACT²

Anusuya serves as the Head of Research for IMPACT². Anusuya earned a BS in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and a PhD in bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco, where she trained with David Schaffer and Kevin Healy. She also completed industry-sponsored postdoctoral research in the laboratory of David A. Weitz at Harvard University.

Her research in academia and industry has focused on building high-throughput functional screening strategies for protein and biopolymer repertoires to rapidly identify therapeutic candidates. Before joining Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Anusuya worked at Sanofi, where she led preclinical antibody development programs and designed screening strategies that supported the discovery and engineering of multitargeted drugs against high-priority immuno-oncology targets. In addition to advancing drug development programs, she is interested in developing new technologies to address critical bottlenecks in therapeutic antibody development.

Outside of work, she enjoys exploring the outdoors with her husband and son.

Ping Ren
Senior Scientist

Ping Ren is a translational antibody engineer with more than nine years of experience spanning antibody discovery, multi-specific biologics, and immune cell engineering. His work focuses on developing next-generation therapeutic platforms that integrate antibody engineering, targeted protein degradation, and T cell biology.

Ping has led discovery programs from target concept through functional candidate validation, combining in vivo immunization strategies, in vitro display technologies (phage, yeast, and mammalian systems), and single-cell B cell sequencing approaches. He has extensive experience in bispecific and trispecific antibody design, antibody humanization, and structure-guided protein engineering supported by computational and AI-driven methods. Prior to joining our team, Ping conducted research at Yale University, where he developed innovative antibody discovery and immune engineering platforms for translational therapeutic applications.

Shahryar Khoshtinat Nikkhoi, PhD
Scientist, IMPACT²

Shahryar obtained his MSc in Biotechnology from Tarbiat Modares University, followed by a PhD from Rutgers University. His doctoral research focused on the generation and characterization of a bispecific killer cell designed to enhance natural killer cell antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) against solid tumors. He is passionate about cancer immunotherapy, with a particular interest in bispecific and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) therapies.

Outside of work, Shahryar enjoys spending time with his young daughter and reading.

Neil Savage, PhD
Scientist, IMPACT²

Neil earned his BSc in Molecular Biology at the University of Guelph followed by his PhD at McMaster University. His research focused on glioblastoma stem cells, employing genome-wide CRISPR screens to uncover genetic regulators and various immunotherapy modalities to target novel markers. Primary tumor tissue, flow cytometry and multiple mouse models were cornerstones to all projects.

Always ready to try something new, his favorite activities include hockey, cooking, documentaries, and wine tastings. Even better when in combinations.

Jillian Baker
Scientist, IMPACT²

Jill earned a BS in forensic science, with a minor in biochemistry and molecular biology, from Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. She then shifted her focus to cancer therapy research and completed a master’s thesis in the lab of John E. Weldon, studying the intracellular trafficking of recombinant immunotoxins, a targeted protein therapy.

After earning an MS in biology from Towson University in Maryland, Jill joined the lab of Tim Luetkens at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where her PhD research focused on developing highly selective antibody- and cell-based therapies, including CAR T-cell therapies. She earned her PhD in molecular microbiology and immunology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, in 2025 and shortly afterward joined the IMPACT² group at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

In her free time, Jill enjoys cross-stitching, reading, and running.

Keerthanah Sivakumar
Research Technician, IMPACT²

Keerthanah joined IMPACT² at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in March 2025. She holds a master’s degree in biotechnology from Northeastern University. Her work focuses on the development and characterization of antibody and CAR T-cell therapies, with expertise in flow cytometry, cell-based assays, and immunoassays.

Outside the lab, she enjoys reading literary fiction, mystery, and science fiction, and experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen.

Rebekka Krumbach, PhD
Senior Project Manager, Translational Research

Rebekka earned her BSc in Biomedicine at the Ludwigs Maximilians Universität Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany. She earned her PhD from The University of Cambridge for work on signaling in the innate immune system conducted at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. She brings more than 15 years of industry research experience spanning oncology, immuno-oncology, autoimmunity, and rare diseases, including leading laboratory groups and cross-functional projects. At Dana-Farber, Rebekka manages translational immune therapy projects from antibody discovery through early clinical trials.