Jenny Poynter and Daniel Harki were appointed to the leadership team of Masonic Cancer Center April 15.
Poynter was named Masonic Cancer Center’s first associate director for Community Outreach and Engagement. Poynter is an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research of the Medical School at the University of Minnesota. She also serves as the vice chair of the Children’s Oncology Group Epidemiology Committee and is a research member of the Masonic Cancer Center’s Screening, Prevention, Etiology, and Cancer Survivorship Program.
She will be joining Chris Pennell, the center’s associate director for Community Outreach and Education. That role will be divided into two associate director roles. Poynter is the associate director of Community Outreach, and Pennell will assume the position of associate director for Education.
Poynter is a molecular epidemiologist whose research is focused on genetic susceptibility and epigenetic alterations in pediatric germ cell tumors and myeloid malignancy.
Harki, an associate professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry within the College of Pharmacy at University of Minnesota, will become a co-leader of the Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota’s Cellular Mechanisms Program. He will join Carol Lange, professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology and Transplantation within the Medical School.
Harki succeeds long time co-leader James McCarthy, professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology in the Medical School.
Harki has published widely on the development of novel small molecules, nucleosides and nucleic acids, and in particular, his program focuses significant efforts developing chemical probes for the APOBEC family of DNA cytosine deaminases.
