Meet The Team

Principal Investigator

Melissa Lechner, MD, PhD

Dr. Melissa Lechner is a physician-scientist and the Principal Investigator of the research group. She did her MD/PhD in the USC/CalTech program in Los Angeles, then completed residencies in Medicine and Pediatrics in Boston at the Harvard Medical School hospitals. She returned to Los Angeles for her clinical fellowship in Endocrinology and then joined the faculty in 2020. Dr. Lechner’s clinical and research interests are related to autoimmune disease resulting from cancer immunotherapy (checkpoint inhibitors) and novel therapies for advanced thyroid cancer.

Staff Research Associate

Jessica Ortega, BS

Jessica is a recent UCLA graduate in Biochemistry, originally from Rancho Cucamonga, CA. Overall, she is interested in Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus Research and autoimmunity. During her undergraduate, she studied the mechanisms of Immune-related Adverse Events from Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor treatments and will continue to do so this year. As a Type 1 Diabetic herself, she hopes to go to medical school and pursue a career as a Pediatric Endocrinologist in the future. She enjoys spending time with friends and family, embroidering, and exploring new places and experiences

Staff Research Associate

Kyleigh Kimbrell, BS

Kyleigh moved to Los Angeles from her hometown Noblesville, Indiana motivated by the goal to work in medicine. She recently graduated from UCLA with a degree in microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics and a minor in disability studies. She wants to continue building on her career in endocrinology and immunology as she is currently applying to medical school. When she is not in the lab, she enjoys exploring California with her family and learning new hobbies.

Graduate Student

Jarod Olay, MS

Jarod is a graduate student at UCLA in the IMMP PhD program. He graduated from UCSD in 2019 with a degree in Human Biology and a Masters in Biology in 2020. He trained in the Crotty Alexander lab at UCSD, assessing the effects of e-cigarettes in mice. In his free time, he is into photography and bike rides.

Undergraduate Researcher

Nicole Huang

Nicole is a fourth-year undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Human Biology and Society and hopes to go to medical school in the future while continuing her interest in research throughout her career. She is interested in the role of inflammatory cytokines in autoimmune disease immunopathology, as well as immune-related adverse events that result from cancer immunotherapy. Born and raised in the Bay Area, she enjoys graphic design, learning different recipes, and exploring new places in her free time.

Undergraduate Researcher

Sarah Wang

Sarah is a third-year Human Biology & Society student at UCLA. She grew up in Washington, D.C., where she first realized her interest in research at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. She now hopes to pursue a career in medicine and is especially interested in investigating autoimmune diseases. Beyond the lab, Sarah is an avid fan of music, pilates, banana bread, and Grey’s Anatomy.

Undergraduate Researcher

Jaden Nguyen

Jaden is a third-year student at UCLA majoring in Biology from Huntington Beach, California. He hopes to pursue a career in research and medicine in the future. His current projects include investigating the mechanisms behind autoimmune disease and the establishment of a thyroid tumor model to study Hashimoto's thyroiditis as well as papillary thyroid cancer. In his free time, you can find him doing photography and trying out new foods.

Undergraduate Researcher

Joah Lee

Joah is a second-year undergraduate student intending to double major in Human Biology and Society and Economics. She hopes to pursue a career in medicine and research. She is interested in autoimmune diseases and tumor immunology. In her free time, Joah loves camping, hiking, and being in the water.

UCLA David Geffen Medical Student

Kristy Kim

Kristy is a third-year medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine. Originally from Port Orange, Florida, she completed her undergraduate studies in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University. After graduation, she worked as a Research Associate at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai investigating personalized neoantigen vaccines in the lab of Dr. Joshua Brody. Currently, she is researching mechanisms mediating immune-related adverse events (IrAEs) as a result of cancer immunotherapy treatment. In her free time, Kristy enjoys reading, long walks, and rewatching Seinfeld.

UCLA MD/PhD Student

Esther Peluso

Esther is a graduate student and medical student in the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine. Her graduate research seeks to understand mechanisms of immune-related adverse events (IrAEs) as a result of cancer immunotherapy treatment.

Undergraduate Researcher

Young Zhao

Young was born and raised in Guangzhou, China before moving to LA in 2014. He is currently a fourth-year Biochemistry student at UCLA and plans to go to medical school in the future. Using single-cell sequencing technology, he is investigating immune mechanisms in the development of autoimmunity, including Type 1 Diabetes, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and cancer immunotherapy-related autoimmune disease. In his free time, Young loves to travel, read, and try out different cuisines of food.

Alumni

Natalie Yakobian

Past Staff Research Associate

Current Saint Louis University Medical Student

Aline Hoang

Past Staff Research Associate

Current Drexel University Medical Student

Lauren Scott

Past Staff Research Associate

Current Kansas University Medical Student

Opportunities

Our lab is looking for highly motivated, self-driven individuals for post-doc, graduate student, and other positions in the lab.

We currently have an opening for a post-doctoral fellow with experience in translational immunology and mouse models of disease. Please send a cover letter and two professional references to MLechner@mednet.ucla.edu.

If you are a graduate student interested in rotating through the Lechner Lab, please email MLechner@mednet.ucla.edu.

Graduate students must be admitted to UCLA through one of the PhD degree-granting programs at UCLA. These include the UCLA-Graduate Program in Biosciences (GPB) and the UCLA-Caltech MSTP program among others. Dr. Lechner is a member of the Home Area of Immunity, Microbes, and Molecular Pathogenesis (IMMP) at the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute (MBI).

Undergraduate students are welcome in the lab. However, currently, space is limited. Priority will be given to undergraduates who plan to spend a significant amount of time longitudinally in the lab, for example, by completing summer projects.