Theisen Lab Staff

Emily R. Theisen, PhD
Principal Investigator
Emily.Theisen@NationwideChildrens.org

Emily R Theisen, PhD, is a principal investigator in the Center for Childhood Cancer at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Theisen earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and her doctorate in pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy. She trained with Dr. Stephen Lessnick in the Center for Childhood Cancer at Nationwide Children’s as a postdoctoral fellow before joining the faculty. Dr.Theisen has spent her career studying pharmacological modulation of chromatin regulators in pediatric cancer, with a specific focus on Ewing sarcoma. Her laboratory focuses on how context defines different roles for chromatin complexes, with an emphasis on LSD1-containing complexes. The laboratory aims to understand how specific functions of chromatin complexes interact with disease-specific chromatin context in order to uncover novel therapeutic strategies.

Cenny Taslim, PhD
Senior Bioinformatics Scientist

Cenny Taslim, PhD, is a senior bioinformatics scientist in the Center for Childhood Cancer. Dr. Taslim received her bachelor's degree in industrial engineering at The Ohio State University. She furthered her education at the same institution, obtaining a doctorate in Industrial Engineering and master’s of science in computer science. She then underwent a postdoctoral training in the Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Department of Statistics as a postdoctoral researcher. Dr. Taslim’s expertise lies in applying machine learning and statistical methods to next- and third-generation sequencing, with a focus on analyzing fusion oncoproteins and developing user-friendly analysis pipelines.

John Sherman, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

John Sherman, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Theisen Lab. He received his bachelor’s degree from Loyola University and focused his undergraduate research on the expression of heat shock proteins during the development of flesh fly larvae. He received his doctoral degree from the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCDB) program at The Ohio State University. Here he worked with Dr. Ruoning Wang on the integration of cell cycle control in G2 and metabolism. Here he taught himself the python programing language and the basics of data science. He joined the Theisen Lab in 2021 to use unbiased multiomics approaches to study the mechanism of action of novel therapies in Ewing sarcoma and build upon is bioinformatics expertise. Here he has integrated genomic, proteomic, and single-cell multiomics analyses.

Rachel Dreher
PhD Candidate

Rachel Dreher is a Biomedical Sciences PhD Candidate pursuing a joint MD/PhD degree at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital. She is originally from Louisville, Colorado and received her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Washington University in St. Louis in 2019. Her dissertation work has sought to pinpoint the functions, both enzymatically and non-enzymatically, of lysine specific demethylase (LSD1) in the hopes of elucidating novel genetic mechanisms and chromatin complexes involved in Ewing sarcoma oncogenesis.

Runwei Zhou
PhD Candidate

Runwei Zhou is a PhD Candidate in the Ohio State Biochemistry Program (OSBP) at The Ohio State University. Originally from Beijing, China, she earned her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry before joining Dr. Emily Theisen’s lab. Her research focuses on understanding how the fusion transcription factor EWSR1::FLI1 drives oncogenic gene regulation in Ewing sarcoma, a rare pediatric cancer. By integrating biochemical, structural and genomic approaches, she aims to uncover how the molecular features of EWSR1::FLI1 coordinate to reprogram the cancer genome and identify potential therapeutic vulnerabilities of EWSR1::FLI1.

Colin Hayes, MD
Hematology Oncology Fellow

Colin Hayes, MD is a Hematology/Oncology Fellow at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Colin earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Penn State University and graduated medical school from the Penn State College of Medicine. He completed his pediatrics residency training at the University of Michigan before moving to Columbus for fellowship in 2024. Colin joined the Theisen lab in July 2025, where he is studying GLRX3, an iron-sulfur cluster protein that is a dependency in Ewing sarcoma.