NIGMS Adds Two New Scientific Staff

NIGMS recently hired two new program directors.

Dr. Luis Cubano is a program director in the Division of Training, Workforce Development and Diversity. He administers the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement program for students from underrepresented groups as well as other diversity-focused institutional research training grants. 

Prior to joining NIGMS, he served as professor and associate dean for research and graduate studies at the Universidad Central del Caribe, in Bayamón, Puerto Rico.

Cubano earned a B.S. in cellular and molecular biology from Tulane University, an M.S. in biology from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a Ph.D. in biology from Kansas State University. He conducted postdoctoral research at Tulane University Medical School.

Dr. Hongwei Gao is a program director in the Center for Research Capacity Building, where he manages Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence and IDeA infrastructure for clinical and translational research grants. He comes to NIGMS from Boston, where he was an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and a senior scientist in the department of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

Gao earned his M.D. in a joint 8-year program of Nankai University and Tianjin Medical University, in China. He earned his Ph.D. in microbiology and molecular genetics at Michigan State University. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of pathology at the University of Michigan.