Core Faculty
Dr. Eleanor Voss, MD, PhD
Dr. Voss founded the MRMP in 2008 following groundbreaking research into peritoneal implantation of bioengineered gestational tissue. She completed her MD/PhD at Johns Hopkins University and a fellowship in Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility at UCSF. Her research has been funded continuously by the NIH for 16 years and she has authored or co-authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Voss serves on the editorial boards of Fertility & Sterility and Human Reproduction.
Dr. James Okonkwo, MD, FACS
Dr. Okonkwo leads all surgical aspects of the MRMP, including HUOI implantation and Cesarean Extraction delivery procedures. He completed his surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital and an MFM surgery fellowship at Brigham and Women's. He has personally performed over 180 HUOI procedures and has pioneered several refinements to the laparoscopic organoid positioning technique. He is currently PI on an NIH R01 grant developing the next-generation LOPS system.
Dr. Mei-Lin Zhao, PhD
Dr. Zhao is the lead architect of the HUOI technology platform. She trained at MIT and completed postdoctoral work at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. Her laboratory of 14 researchers works on every aspect of organoid development, from iPSC derivation through vascularization and functional testing. Her 2026 paper in Nature Biomedical Engineering describing the ANGIO-X vascularization protocol was named one of the top 10 biomedical papers of the year.
Dr. Samuel Ferrara, MD, FACS
Dr. Ferrara developed the Transanal Assisted Delivery (TAD) technique in collaboration with Dr. Okonkwo and first performed the procedure in 2019. He trained in colorectal surgery at the Cleveland Clinic and completed an advanced endoscopic surgery fellowship at Mount Sinai. His research focuses on refining TAD eligibility criteria, reducing procedural time, and establishing the long-term safety profile of the pathway. He is currently PI of the TAD-EXTEND Phase III trial.
Program Team
Dr. Rafael Vasquez, PhD
Dr. Sarah Park, MD
Dr. Anna Lindqvist, PsyD
Dr. Thanh Nguyen, MD
Dr. Maria Torres, MSN
Dr. George Harrington III, MD
Dr. Carmen Molina, PharmD
