Welcome To the Lab Shlomo!!!

Welcome to our newest PhD student Shlomo Pallas!!!

Shlomo Pallas is a new graduate Ph.D. student in the Maryanovich lab investigating the effects of bone marrow nerves on MDS and AML progression. Shlomo attended CUNY Hunter College as an undergraduate where he began his scientific career in the lab of Dr. Andrew Wolfe studying mechanisms of resistance to KRAS inhibitors and graduated with a B.A. in Biology in 2024. In the summer of 2023, under the mentorship of Drs. Scott Brady and Gerardo Morfini at the marine biological institute, Shlomo studied the effects of pathogenic proteins on axonal transport using the squid giant axon, where he discovered domains of TDP-43 responsible for inhibiting both retrograde and anterograde transport. Following graduation Shlomo entered the Ph.D. program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2024 and joined the Maryanovich lab.

Where are you from?

Long Island New York

What drove you to pursue a career/education in the sciences?

Ever since childhood I have been obsessed with finding out the “why” behind the way the world around me worked and that has carried me all these years. I became interested in biology in high school when I stumbled upon some really in depth/detailed animations of cellular structure and intracellular processes like DNA replication while studying for a biology exam. The fact that the ‘machinery’ was actively at work in all our cells really captivated my imagination and I was absolutely hooked.

Is there a particular scientific question/problem you are interested in?

I’m interested in how the nervous system interacts and regulates cancer progression both through the local microenvironment and via direct cell communication.

Who are some of your scientific (and/or non-scientific) “heroes”?

My dad raised me to ask interesting questions and never to be afraid of speaking up and learning something new every day.

What scientific finding/paper/book (in any field) impacted you most?

Surely, You’re Joking Mr. Feynman really taught me what its like to live a life of curiosity and wonder even into your adult years. I also took inspiration from Richard Feynman’s playful demeanor and effort to distill information to its most basic forms to gain a true understanding of the world around us.

What are some of your non-science hobbies?

I have recently become interested in collecting Jewish Sephardic prayer books and learning more about Sephardic Jewish history.