people.txt

firstName	lastName	Occupation	Department	Former Education	Project title	Project description	Project group	Project supervisor	Nickname	Img Type
Maroof	Adil	Postdoc	Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering	"BS in Chemical Engineering (MIT), BS in Biology (MIT), PhD in Chemical Engineering (University of Minnesota)"	Design of materials for cell and gene delivery to the central nervous system					jpg
Andrew	Bremer	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	"BS University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2010"	Cell patterning on engineered substrates to investigate cellular interactions of the neural stem cell niche.					png
Leah	Byrne	Postdoc	Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute	"BA in Neuroscience from Hamilton College (2002), PhD from U.C. Berkeley HWNI (2011)"	AAV-mediated retinal gene therapy 	"Recently we have developed, using rational mutagenesis and directed evolution, novel AAV varients with enhanced abilities to transduce multiple retinal cell types. My projects focus on expanding on this work to create AAV vectors with expanded transduction profiles and using these vectors to ameliorate inherited forms of retinal degeneration."				jpg
John	Chen	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Adeno-associated viruses for gene therapy applications					jpg
SiSi	Chen	Postdoc/Alumni	Bioengineering	"BioEngineering, Ph.D UC Berkeley; Electrical Engineering, B.S. MIT"	Surface Patterning to Investigate Cell-Cell Interactions that Regulate Neural Stem Cell Fate Decisions	"Neural stem cells in the subgranular zone of the mammalian hippocampus are found in a complex cellular niche comprised of astrocytes, granule neurons, and endothelial cell-lined blood vessels. However, this niche is difficult to visualize and track in vivo. My aim is to combine high throughput imaging and surface micropatterning to recreate small-scale cellular niches to understand how neighboring cells influence NSC fate at the single-cell level."				png
Emily	Connelly	Undergraduate								jpg
Tim	Day	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	"BS, Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University. MSE, Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University"	Optogenetic tools for the precise control of cellular signaling	"Cells integrate and transmit information through cellular signaling networks, where proteins are activated and inactivated in specific sequences to yield cell fate outcomes. The complexity of these networks is compounded by their dynamic nature in both space and time. Unfortunately, current technologies are insufficient to interrogate and reproduce protein signals with the spatiotemporal resolution at which they occur in nature, thus limiting our ability to understand them. We aim to engineer novel protein systems to enable photoactivation of various signaling proteins. Successful development of such light-inducible tools will provide unprecedented fine control over protein signal duration, intensity and location within living cells and tissues. Varying these parameters and observing the corresponding biological outputs will help illuminate how signalling dynamics determine cell fate. Identifying these input-output relationships is of great interest to the field of stem cell engineering, where properly manipulating cellular environments and signals will allow the efficient generation of therapeutically relevant target cell types."				jpg
Barbara	Ekerdt	Graduate Student	Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	BS in Chemical Engineering at University of Texas at Austin	Nanopatterned chemistry and topography using block copolymers and photolithography for stem cell differentiation 	My project focuses on determining how a surface's topography can effect neural stem cell differentiation. Both length scale and organization of chemical and topographical pattern will be analyzed with self-assembling block copolymers and surfaces made from photolithography.				jpg
Benjamin	Epstein	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	BS(Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2010)	Gene therapy for dominant genetic retinal diseases	Dominant genetic diseases provide a challenge for gene therapy approaches. I work on adeno-associated viral vector-based methods for treating such diseases in the retina.				jpg
Thomas	Gaj	Postdoc	QB3	"Ph.D. Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute (2013)"	Directed evolution and optimization of AAV delivery systems					gif
Kevin	Huang	Undergraduate								jpg
Yongsoo	Joo	Undergraduate							Peter	
Mike	Kang	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	"B.S. Chemical Engineering, B.A. English, University of Maryland College Park"	Mechanotransductive Response of Neural Progenitor Cells					jpg
Philip	Kang	Graduate Student	Bioengineering							jpg
Mervi	Kuronen	Postdoc	Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute	"PhD, Folkhalsan Institute of Genetics and Neuroscience Center, University of Helsinki, Finland (2012)"	Improving AAV-mediated gene therapy for inherited retinal degenerations					jpg
Prajit	Limsirichai	Graduate Student	Plant and microbial 	"Trinity University, 2010"	Virus-host interactions in HIV infections					jpg
Don	Mai	Undergraduate	"Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Computer Science"		Construction of a computer simulation of HIV infection	"Biological systems are large, complex, and multi-faceted, and computational simulations serve as a way to understand some of the intricacies of the systems. We are constructing a large-scale model of the molecular interactions between Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and a human T cell. This project will enable a better understanding of HIV infection, and may point to new therapeutic targets."	HIV	Jayodita Sanghvi		jpg
Sean	McFarland	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	"B.S. Clarion University of Pennsylvania, Molecular / Cell Biology and Biotechnology, 2009"	Developing High Throughput (Stem) Cell Arrays for Studying Cell Properties and Behavior					jpg
Riya	Muckom	Graduate Student	Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	"B.S. Chemical&Biochemical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines 2013"	Developing a Platform for High Throughput Screening of Pluripotent Stem Cells					png
David	Ojala	Graduate Student	Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	"B.S. University of Washington, (2011)"	Engineering Adeno-Associated Virus for Gene Therapy in the Central Nervous System	Gene therapy has strong potential for treating a variety of genetic disorders of the brain and spinal cord. Improved gene delivery vehicles are needed to overcome the unique challenges of safely administering therapeutic genes in the central nervous system. My aim is to develop novel adeno-associated virus variants with unique targeting capabilities relevant to disorders of the brain and spinal cord.				jpg
Brian	Perea	Graduate Student	Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	"B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Arizona State University, 2012"	Developing a high throughput platform for studying stem cell properties and behavior					jpg
Anusuya	Ramasubramanian	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	"Stanford University, 2011"	Engineering Synthetic Peptide Surfaces for hESC renewal and differentiation 					jpg
Nicole	Repina	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	"B.A in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (Boston University, 2013)"	Engineering optical tools for light-induced control of stem cell signaling pathways					jpg
Goncaloo	Rodrigues	Visiting Scholar	Bioengineering	Purification of hPSC-derived neural precursors	"Cell separation and enrichment of target-cells differentiated from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) will be essential for the application of these promising cellular products in drug screening tests, disease modeling studies and tissue engineering treatments. The inability to differentiate all stem cells cultured into the desired cell type, with 100% efficiency, will demand purification stages along hPSC commitment protocols. However, the development of a wide-ranging method, or device, capable of concurrently achieve cell separations with high throughput, high target-cell recovery, high final purity and high viability remains difficult. Focusing on scalability, the central objective of this project is to develop a tag-free enrichment platform for hPSC-derived neural precursors. The successful implementation of such strategy may contribute to overcome the bottleneck of having potentially dangerous cell heterogeneity after neuronal differentiation."					jpg
Alyssa	Rosenbloom	Postdoc	Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering	"BS in Genetics and BS in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University, PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley"	Development of high throughput screening systems with high content image-based analysis to elucidate new mechanisms for micro-environment regulation of stem cell fate decisions	My project focuses on the development of multi-chromatic fluorescent sensors and reporter systems compatible with high throughput 3D cellular printing to track stem cell fate decisions in response to micro-environments.				jpg
Jayodita	Sanghvi	Postdoc/Alumni	QB3	"MIT, BS Biology (2007); Stanford University, PhD Bioengineering (2013)"	Construction of a computer simulation of HIV infection	"Biological systems are large, complex, and multi-faceted, and computational simulations serve as a way to understand some of the intricacies of the systems. We are constructing a large-scale model of the molecular interactions between Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and a human T cell. This project will enable a better understanding of HIV infection, and may point to new therapeutic targets."	HIV			jpg
Jorge	Santiago-Ortiz	Graduate Student	Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	"B.S. in Chemical Engineering; University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez"	Engineering of a lentiviral vector with directed integration properties	"Lentiviral vectors represent very important tools in both basic research and in gene therapy. Several characteristics make them desirable, such as their ability to infect both dividing and non-dividing cells and to elicit a long-term expression of the delivered gene via its integration into the host cell's genome. However, this insertion, which in lentiviruses occurs in a semi-random way, poses a risk of insertional mutagenesis, which could represent a health hazard when utilizing the lentiviruses in gene therapy. One way to circumvent this feature and to improve the vector's safety is to direct the integration events such that they are targeted to a specific site within the host cell's genome that would be safe for integration. This project aims to engineer a lentiviral vector with directed integration properties. The approach taken involves the insertion of DNA binding domains, which specifically target DNA sequences suitable for insertions, in permissible sites within the viral proteins."				jpg
Olivia	Scheideler	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	BS University of Nebraska-Lincoln 	Engineering Strategies for Dissecting the Neural Stem Cell Niche					jpg
Dawn	Spelke	Graduate Student	Bioengineering	"MIT, BS (2009)"	Molecular mechanisms of cell-cell signaling in neural stem cells	"I am interested in studying and controlling the molecular mechanisms of cell-cell signaling in neural stem cells (NSCs). In collaboration with the Groves Lab, I am using a supported lipid bilayer system to mimic cell-cell interactions in the NSC niche, specifically Eph/ ephrin induced NSC differentiation. I am also exploring molecular and biomaterial based approaches to recapitulate cell contact dependent cues. "				png
Sabrina	Sun	Graduate Student	Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering	"B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Caltech, 2013"	Engineering adeno-associated viruses for gene delivery					png
Tandis	Vazin	Research Scientist		Ph.D. Royal Institute of Technology/Johns Hopkins Univ./NIH (2008)	Designing biomimetic systems for directed dopaminergic differentiation of human embryonic stem cells	"Rapid progress has been attained in the development of differentiation paradigms to drive different type of neurons from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), with the fundamental objective of using these cells for replacement and repair of damaged neuronal circuits in the central nervous system. Of particular interest are midbrain dopaminergic neurons because degeneration or loss of function of these neurons is associated with Parkinson's disease. Many protocols used to direct hESCs to develop into dopaminergic neurons are highly inefficient, or use co-culture systems of hESCs with cells of animal origin which prevents any downstream clinical application due to possible transfer of animal cells and pathogens. Also, most of these strategies employ classical two-dimensional culturing conditions for neuronal and dopaminergic induction which have limited relevance to the native three-dimensional conditions. Other major challenges that must be overcome to realize the therapeutic potential of hESC-derived dopaminergic neurons are poor survival and integration upon transplantation. To overcome these obstacles, we aim to design defined three-dimensional biological systems functionalized with bioactive components including recently identified midbrain patterning molecules and neurotrophic factors to support efficient dopaminergic differentiation of hESCs ex vivo. These cellular scaffolds are also designed to act as a temporary extracellular matrix after transplantation to enhance the survival and functional integration in vivo to meet the requirements for cell-based strategies for brain repair."				jpg
Chrystina	Yu	Undergraduate								jpg
Michael	Yu	Undergraduate