Movers & Makers reached out this month to regional organizations working in the field of medical research. We asked them to help us showcase their notables as part of M&M’s continuing effort to recognize individuals making a difference in medical research and in Greater Cincinnati’s nonprofit ecosystem.
Mary Kate Gehret, Wood Hudson
Mary Kate Gehret, Ph.D., brings a rare combination of scientific focus and enthusiasm to cancer research. As a staff scientist at Wood Hudson Cancer Research Laboratory, she can spend hours thinking about her experiments and still have the energy to light up a room afterward. When she is not in the lab, she is usually with friends, family or her husband, though it is widely understood that her true bosses are her wonderfully chaotic feline crew.
Her excitement for science carries over into everything she does, especially when it comes to mentoring young minds. She looks forward to working with students in the Undergraduate Research Education Program at Wood Hudson, where her curiosity and humor make learning engaging to inspire the next generation of researchers and clinicians. Whether she is analyzing data or wrangling cats, Gehret shows up fully, making science fun for everyone around her.
Brian J. Chilelli, Mercy Health
Dr. Brian J. Chilelli is a board-certified orthopaedic surgeon specializing in complex knee surgery, with expertise in cartilage restoration, knee preservation and ligament reconstruction. He serves as an orthopaedic surgeon at Mercy Health and is a faculty member at the Cincinnati Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center fellowship. Chilelli completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, followed by a sports medicine fellowship
at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
His clinical interests include advanced cartilage repair techniques, osteotomies, cartilage transplantation and orthobiologics. Chilelli is an active researcher and educator, contributing extensively to orthopaedic literature and national courses. He has adopted innovative technology, serving as the first surgeon in Cincinnati to utilize the CartiHeal implant for cartilage repair. He will also take part in a Phase III multicenter FDA clinical trial evaluating a novel stem cell-based therapy, CartiStem, for cartilage damage.
Christin Godale, LifeSciKY
Christin Godale, Ph.D., is helping position the region as an emerging hub for life sciences innovation. As executive director of LifeSciKY, she is building dedicated infrastructure to support independent early-stage life science companies, connecting founders, researchers and industry partners to accelerate growth.
Under Godale’s leadership, LifeSciKY launched a 15,000-square-foot lab in Covington that has already attracted multiple startups and its first international company, Mitsui Chemicals, to the region, serving as early proof of momentum.
Godale’s background in neuroscience and venture investing informs her hands-on approach to supporting founders, while her work developing fellowships and university partnerships is creating a pipeline for future innovators. She is a dedicated epilepsy advocate, raising awareness and supporting research to improve treatments and patient outcomes.
Takanori Takebe, Cincinnati Children’s
Takanori Takebe, M.D., Ph.D., is redefining what’s possible in regenerative medicine, growing miniature human organs from stem cells and moving them toward real-world therapies for children with life-threatening disease. He is an associate professor and is director of commercial innovation at the Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Research and Medicine. At just 39, he was named to the 2026 TIME100 Health list, recognized for pioneering organoid medicine and advancing bold ideas like enteral “rectal” ventilation, which earned his team a satirical Ig Nobel Prize in 2024. Takebe’s work stands out for its urgency: His lab has engineered multi-zonal liver organoids, connected multi-organ systems and scalable platforms to replace damaged organs and accelerate drug discovery. He originally planned to become a transplant surgeon; witnessing the shortage of donor organs pushed him to grow new ones instead. That pivot captures Takebe’s humanity: a scientist driven not just by curiosity, but by the children waiting for solutions.
Francisco Romo-Nava, Lindner Center of Hope
Romo-Nava is associate chief research officer at the Lindner Center of Hope and associate professor at the University of Cincinnati Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences. He has received several academic distinctions, including a NARSAD Young Investigator Award by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, grants from the National Institutes of Health, and is a research co-lead for Breakthrough Discoveries for thriving with Bipolar Disorder (BD2) Integrated Network site.
He is also a physician-scientist studying the role of brain-body interaction networks in the context of psychiatric disorders, and is breaking new ground with studies of the circadian system and spinal interoceptive pathways in mood and eating disorders. He is the inventor of a promising new intervention, spinal cord stimulation, which is now patented for treating psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Francisco Romo-Nava is a proud husband and dad. He likes to spend time riding a bike with his kids and hiking around the trails of the Cincinnati Nature Center or visiting children’s museums with his family.
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