GRADUATE STUDENT DIRECTORY 2013 - 2014

Biomedical Engineering Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology

Biotechnology

Updated 8/30/2013

Biomedical Engineering

PhD Program

Name: Naubahar Agha Contact: Naubahar_Agha@Brown.edu, x3-2333, Barus & Holley Room 242 Keywords: Neurotechnology, Neural Implants, Rehabilitation Engineering Techniques: Neurosurgery, microelectronic fabrication, animal training Summary: The focus of my research is on extracting neural signals from the brain using novel, broadband, wireless, fully-implantable neural recording devices to determine intent and decision making for neural prosthetics applications.

Name: Stephanie Angione Contact: Stephanie_Angione@Brown.edu, x3-1319, Medical Research Laboratories Room 107 Keywords: Microfluidics, Infectious Disease Diagnostics, Microdroplet DNA Amplification Techniques: DNA and RNA isolation, PCR, molecular diagnostic assay design and development, microfluidic design and fabrication Summary: My research focus is on developing rapid and more informative methods to detect infectious diseases like influenza A and Clostridium difficile using microfluidic techniques.

Name: Glareh Azadi Contact: Glareh_Azadi@Brown.edu, x3-1319, Medical Research Laboratory Room 107 Keywords: Electrokinetic Phenomena in Hydrophobic Capillaries, Bacterial Inhibition, Protein Detection in Microfluidic Devices Techniques: Summary:

Name: Olivia Beane Contact: Olivia_Beane@Brown.edu, x3-6807, Biomedical Center Room 377 Keywords: Aging, Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Musculoskeletal Tissue Regeneration Techniques: Primary cell isolation and culture, histology, stem cell differentiation Summary: My research focuses on understanding the inherent differences of mesenchymal stem cell sources in diseased models, as well as identifying potential alternatives to mesenchymal stem cell purification methods with a goal to improve regenerative medicine therapies.

Name: Alison Biercevicz Contact: Alison_Biercevicz@Brown.edu, (203) 206-65734, Coro West Suite 404 Keywords: ACL, Biomechanics, MRI Techniques: Magnetic resonance imaging, mechanical testing Summary: Developing a non-invasive MR based technique for evaluating ACL treatment techniques as they relate to ex vivo structural properties

Name: Molly Boutin Contact: Molly_Boutin@Brown.edu, x3-3125, Biomedical Center Room 373 Keywords: Neural Stem Cells, Neuronal Differentiation and the 3D Environment Techniques: Fluorescence and confocal microscopy, immunocytochemistry, 3D tissue culture, neural stem cell culture Summary: My research focuses on the differentiation environment of neural stem cells and different variables which affect stem cell differentiation.

Name: Sean Curran Contact: Sean_Curran@Brown.Edu, X3-9419, Biomedical Center Room 373 Keywords: ATP-Binding Cassette Transporters, ABCG2, Spheroids Techniques: Microtissue cell culture, fluorescence microscopy, time lapse microscopy Summary: My research focuses on the behavior of the ABCG2 transporter and the uptake of model drugs into a three dimensional micro-tissue.

Name: Toni-Marie Ferruccio Contact: Toni-Marie_Ferruccio@Brown.edu, x3-9419, Biomedical Center Room 373 Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Jason Gaudette Contact: Jason_Gaudette@Brown.edu, x3-3012, Sidney Frank Hall Room 431 Keywords: Bio-Inspired Sonar, Bat Echolocation, Neuromorphic Processing Techniques: Computational modeling and simulation, acoustic array signal processing, time-frequency analysis Summary: The focus of my research is on reverse engineering the neural information processing of echolocating bats to improve the capabilities of man-made sonar systems.

Name: Michael Godfrin Contact: Michael_Godfrin@Brown.edu Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Rafael Gonzalez-Cruz Contact: Rafael_Gonzalez_Cruz@Brown.edu, X3-6807 , Bio Medical Center Room 377 Keywords: Stem cells, Mechanical Properties, Gene Expression, Spatial Organization, Enrichment Techniques: Fluorescence microscopy, atomic force microscopy, stem cell culture, osteogenesis, cell transfection, molecular beacons, image stitching and processing, MATLAB Summary: My research focuses in understanding the mechanical and gene expression profiles of adipose-derived stem cells in regards to their spatial organization during osteogenic differentiation. By using atomic force microscopy and molecular beacon technologies to characterize such profiles, I will examine how ASCs organization in conventional cultures can provide insights for devising stem cell enrichment strategies.

Name: Eni Halilaj Contact: Eni_Halilaj@Brown.edu, 774-239-3562, Coro West 4th Floor Keywords: Biomechanics, Medical Imaging, Computation Modeling Techniques: Image processing techniques, 3D analysis of human motion Summary: My research focuses on using computational derivates of medical imaging data, specifically computed tomography, to improve the current understanding of skeletal joint mechanics and quantify changes that may occur with joint pathology.

Name: Mark Homer Contact: Mark_Homer@Brown.edu, 508-269-1011, 2 Stimson Avenue Room 120 Keywords: Brain Machine Interfaces, Neuroscience, Machine Learning, Decoding Techniques: Kalman filter, state space models, maximum likelihood estimation, machine learning Summary: My research seeks to develop better decoding algorithms for use in brain machine interfaces.

Name: Nicholas Labriola Contact: Nicholas_Labriola@Brown.edu, x3-6807, Biomedical Center Room 377 Keywords: Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Atomic Force Microscopy, Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Techniques: Atomic force microscopy, CAD programs (Solidworks, AutoCAD), programming (Matlab, C++, Labview), primary cell culture Summary: Research focuses on enrichment of stem cells by lineage potential through exploitation of mechanical differences, ultimately resulting in a device to be used in a clinical setting for single-surgery cell-based therapies.

Name: Farah Laiwalla Contact: Farah_Laiwalla@Brown.edu Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Katherine Larson Contact: Katherine_Larson@Brown.edu, Coro Center Room 4.303 Keywords: Lubricin, Tribology, Articular Joint Lubrication Techniques: Fluorescence microscopy, ELISA, western blots, explant culture, bose enduratec osteochondral plug barring systems Summary: My research involves exploring the correlation between coefficient of friction, articular joint lubrication, and cellular apoptosis through studying the boundary lubricating properties of the mucinous glycoprotein, lubricin, which can be found within the synovial fluid of articular joints. This protein could have therapeutic value in osteoarthritis prevention for joint trauma injuries.

Name: Beth Leary Contact: Elizabeth_Leary@Brown.edu Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Yu-Ting Liu Contact: Yutliu@Brown.edu, x3-3125, Biomedical Center Room 373 Keywords: Neural Stem Cells, 3D Cell Culture, Neuroengineering Techniques: Primary neuron isolation and culture, stem cell culture and differentiation, 3D tissue culture, immunocytochemistry, confocal microscopy Summary: My research focuses on the effects of microenvironmental cues on stem cell differentiation towards the dopaminergic neuron lineage.

Name: Cristina Lopez-Fagundo Contact: Cristina_Lopez-Fagundo@Brown.edu, X3-3125, Biomedical Center Room 373 Keywords: Nerve Regeneration, Schwann Cells, Traction Force Microscopy, Biomechanical use Techniques: Traction force microscopy, immunohistochemistry, cell culture, fabrication and functionalization of compliant polyacrylamide gels Summary: My current project studies how Schwann cells sense and respond to the stiffness of their underlying substrates and how these responses can change with varying cell morphology.

Name: Mary Machado Contact: Mary_Machado@Brown.edu, x3-1319, Medical Research Laboratory Room 307 Keywords: Nanotechnology, Biofilm, Laminar Flow, Respiratory System Techniques: In vitro bacterial culture, scanning electron microscopy, fabrication of nanomodified surfaces using fungal lipase Summary: My research focuses on the study of bacterial colonization on nanoroughened endotracheal tubes under the dynamic flow conditions found within the respiratory system.

Name: Travis May Contact: Travis_May@Brown.edu, Barus & Holley Room 242 Keywords: Neuroengineering, Systems Neuroscience, Optogenetics Techniques: Summary: Developing an increasingly popular neuroscience tool, optogenetics, while studying the sensorimotor cortices and their applications towards neuroprosthetics, diseases of the brain, and basic science

Name: Sunmee Park Contact: Sunmee_Park@Brown.edu, Barus & Holley Room 242 Keywords: Optical Powering, Neural Recording, Brain-Computer Interface Techniques: MATLAB, C++/ PADS, DxDesigner, NI CVI Summary: My research is developing neural recording system that can be implanted to cortical area of animal model, especially routed optical fibers to power the system as well as getting the data. My research includes fabrication of photovoltaic devices, fabrication of implantable neural recording device, collecting long-term data of biocompatible PDMS packaging devices, transition of bench top device to animal application, training animals for certain tasks and collecting and analyzing data.

Name: Cosima Schunk Contact: Cosima_Schunk@Brown.edu, x3-9754, Prince Lab Keywords: Bat Flight, Wake Visualization, Micro Air Vehicles Techniques: Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) Summary: My research is about understanding bat flight by focusing on their wake, with the goal to understand how we can simplify the system for further applications, like flapping membrane-wing micro air vehicles.

Name: Vince Siu Contact: Vince_Siu@Brown.edu, x3-1863, Barus & Holley Room 511 Keywords: Biosensors, Plasmonics, Synthetic Biology Techniques: Molecular biology techniques (bacterial transformation, PCR, protein purification, western blot, FACS, fluorimetry), surface modification/characterization techniques (FTIR, SEM, FIB) Summary: My research focuses on the development of applied innovative point-of-care diagnostics for microscale biochemical and clinical sensing.

Name: David Stout Contact: David_Stout@Brown.edu, Medical Research Laboratory (MRL) Room 201 Keywords: Cardiovascular, Nanotechnology, Biomaterials Techniques: Scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, cell-culturing Summary: The focus of my research is to create a nanoscale conductive cardiac patch that can promote the growth and viability of transplanted cardiomyocytes to an infracted portion of a heart.

Name: Michael Susienka Contact: Michael_Susienka@Brown.edu, CoroWest, Suite 402C, (401) 444-5331 Keywords: Endothelial-Mesenchymal Transition; Stem Cells; Tissue Engineering; Orthopaedics Techniques: Cell culture; western blots; immunohistochemistry; qPCR; primary cell isolation Summary: My research focuses on cell plasticity and using synthetic drugs to induce stem cell differentiation and cartilage regeneration.

Name: Bryan Sutermaster Contact: Bryan_Sutermaster@Brown.edu Keywords: Melanoma, Molecular Beacons, Cancer Diagnostics Techniques: Epifluorescence microscopy, qPCR, cell culture Summary: My research interest centers around assessing real-time differential expression of cancer-associated genes in normal and cancerous melanocytes using a molecular beacon-based assay.

Name: Lindsay Walker Contact: Lindsay_Walker@Brown.edu, X3-7661, Arnold Lab Room 317 Keywords: Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Pediatric Brain Development Techniques: Magnetic resonance imaging, pediatric brain development Summary: I am interested in understanding how the brain develops as we grow, and how this information might be instructive in understanding what is different in the case of developmental disorders, such as Autism.

Name: Jingjing Wang Contact: Jingjing_Wang@Brown.edu, x3-3777, MRL Room 106 Keywords: Beads Capture RNA, Traction Force Microscopy, Cell Mechanics Techniques: Traction force microscopy, primary cell culture, nucleic acid sequence amplification (NASBA), RNA isolation and detection with microchip Summary: My research focuses on developing a microfluidic technique to detect influenza target.

Name: Bethany Wilcox Contact: Bethany_Wilcox@Brown.edu, Bioengineering Laboratory, Department of Orthopaedics, 1 Hoppin Street, Suite 404 Coro West Keywords: Biomechanics, Sports-related Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (Concussion) Techniques: MATLAB, Labview, system control software, electromechanical systems, human subjects research, experimental design, signal processing, telemetry, digital & analog data acquisition Summary: My research interest lies in understanding the biomechanical basis of mild traumatic brain injury and investigating what role gender plays in clinical incidence of and biomechanical tolerances to the injury.

ScM & 5th Year Master’s Program

Name: Justin Morse Contact: Justin_Morse@Brown.edu, Arnold Lab Room 310 Keywords: Head Impact Simulation, Traumatic Brain Injury, Lacrosse, Model Validation Techniques: Finite element analysis, high-performance computing Summary: I'm using a 3D finite element head model to simulate head impacts that occur in lacrosse. Model validation against previous experiments is the first step, the goal is to bridge the gap between external mechanical forces and the stresses and strains inside the brain in an attempt to better understand how concussion occurs, in lacrosse in particular.

New Biomedical Engineering Students

PhD Program

Jose Albites-Sanabria

Francis Cui

Manisha Kanthilal

Cassady Rupert

Zeyang Yu

ScM & 5th Year Master’s Program

Bethany Almeida

Christopher Black

Michelle Bookstaver

Tom Clinckemaillie

Brent Cross

Siddhant Jaitpal

Naveed Jooma

Daniel Keenan

Joshua Leung

Apurva Limaye

Kali Manning

Mark Scimone

Maswazi Sihlabela

Shashank Shukla

Lei Zhang

Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology

PhD Program

Name: Ayed Allawzi Contact: Ayed_Allawzi@Brown.edu, Providence VA Medical Center Building 35 Keywords: Endothelial Dysfunction, Pulmonary Hypertension, Anoctamin-1 (TMEM16A) Techniques: Western blotting, PCR, arterial ring studies, myograph ring studies, confocal fluorescence microscopy, cell culture and primary cell isolation Summary: My research focuses on the role of Anoctamin-1, a calcium activated chloride channel, in hypoxic endothelial dysfunction.

Name: Nicholas Bellono Contact: Nicholas_Bellono@Brown.edu, x3-6315, Biomedical Center Room 328 Keywords: Signal Transduction, Ion Channels, Electrophysiology Techniques: Electrophysiology, fluorescence imaging Summary: My research focuses on characterizing ultraviolet light phototransduction in human skin.

Name: Anda Chirila Contact: Anda_Chirila@Brown.edu, x3-1012, Biomedical Center Room 477 Keywords: Synaptic Plasticity, TRPV1, Chronic Pain Techniques: Whole cell recordings from neurons in acute brain slices, microscopy, transgenic mice, PCR Summary: I study inhibitory synapses in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. Synaptic changes at this site lead to the generation and maintenance of chronic pain states. We will also explore the use of optogenetic techniques to study pain pathways.

Name: Hetal Desai Contact: Hetal_Desai@Brown.edu, x3-6807, Biomedical Center Room 377 Keywords: Nucleic Acid Hybridization Probes, Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Musculoskeletal Tissue Engineering Techniques: Probe design and synthesis, bioimaging, primary cell isolation and culture, stem cell differentiation Summary: My research focuses on live-cell gene expression analyses of differentiating mesenchymal stem cells in 2D and 3D microenvironments to inform and improve tissue engineered constructs.

Name: Cyrena Gawuga Contact: Cyrena_Gawuga@Brown.edu Keywords: Psychoneuroimmunology, Early Life Stress, Immune Biomarkers Techniques: Colorimetric high-sensitivity ELISA, quantitative psychological and medical assessment, multivariate statistical modeling, SPSS Summary: My research focuses on the relationship between inflammatory immune activity and psychological stress, particularly stressful experiences in childhood, and the potential utility of markers of immune activity (e.g., cytokines) in the clinical assessment of stress-related psychiatric and medical disorders.

Name: Kirk Haltaufderhyde Contact: Kirk_Haltaufderhyde@Brown.edu, Biomedical Center Room 328 Keywords: Skin pigmentation, Melanocytes, Melanogenesis Techniques: RNA-Seq, qPCR, molecular cloning, primary human melanocyte culture, gene transfection Summary: My research interest lies in understanding the regulation of melanin synthesis in human epidermal melanocytes.

Name: Ynes Helou Contact: Ynes_Helou@Brown.edu, 3-1627, Laboratories for Molecular Medicine (Box G-E) Room 327 Keywords: Signal Transduction, Phosphoproteomics, Mass Spectrometry Techniques: Primary cell isolation and culture, SILAC quantitation, phosphopeptide enrichment, HPLC purification of peptides, flow cytometry, liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LCMS) Summary: My research exploits emerging mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomic technologies to gain insights into T cell receptor-dependent phosphorylation signaling networks.

Name: Diana Lizarazo Contact: Diana_Lizarazo@Brown.edu, (401) 444-8654, 55 Claverick Street, 4th Floor, Providence, RI 02903 Keywords: Liver, Cancer, Directional Motility Techniques: Cell culture, western blot, ELISA, qRT-PCR, confocal microscopy Summary: My research focuses on understanding the mechanism by which the protein aspartyl-asparaginyl-β-hydroxylase promotes tumor infiltration, using hepatocellular carcinoma as a model, in order to develop targeted therapies.

Name: Dana Lord Contact: Dana_Lord@Brown.edu, Laboratories of Molecular Medicine (Box G-E) Keywords: Structural Biology, Biofilms, Toxin-Antitoxin Systems Techniques: X-ray crystallography, NMR, protein expression and purification, electrophoretic mobility shift assay, in vitro RNA studies, Western Blot Summary: I use a combination of structural biology, biochemistry, and microbiology to elucidate uncharacterized proteins upregulated in bacterial biofilms.

Name: Matthew Mulcahy Contact: Matthew_Mulcahy@Brown.edu, X3-1357, Laboratories for Molecular Medicine (Box GE 3) Room 322 Keywords: α7-Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors, Affinity Purification, Radioligand Binding, Mass Spectrometry Techniques: Mammalian cell culture, affinity purification, radioligand binding assay, Western Blot, mass spectrometry Summary: My research is focused on identifying proteins which interact with α7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptors to better understand the signaling pathways of the receptor and its association with neurodegenerative diseases.

Name: Kyle Newman Contact: Kyle_Newman@Brown.edu, Laboratories of Molecular Medicine (Box G-E) Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Hilary Nicholson Contact: Hilary_Nicholson@Brown.edu, x3-6137, Bio Med Center Room 477 Keywords: Sigma-2 Receptor, Neuroblastoma, Apoptosis, Cancer Techniques: Cytotoxicity assay, calcium fluorescence assay, cell culture, western blot, radioactive binding Summary: My research focuses on the pharmacology and function of the sigma-2 receptor and its impact on cancer. I characterize sigma-2 ligands and use them to investigate the proliferative and cytotoxic effects induced by sigma-2 ligand binding.

Name: Rana Ozdeslik Contact: Rana_Ozdeslik@Brown.edu, Bio Med Center Room 328 Keywords: Extraretinal phototransduction, circadian entrainment, opsin photoreceptor family Techniques: Molecular biology, qPCR, immunocytochemistry, TIRF and fluorescent microscopy, Ca imaging, NMR, primary melanocyte & keratinocyte culture. Summary: My research interest lies in understanding of extraretinal photoreceptive protein expression and downstream phototransduction pathway in human skin cells.

Name: Lauren Quattrochi Contact: Lauren_Quattrochi@Brown.edu, x3-7751, Sidney Frank Hall Room 471 Keywords: Intrinsically Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cell (ipRGC), Melanopsin, Non-Image Forming Vision Techniques: Intracellular electrophysiology, histology, optogenetics Summary: My research focuses on elucidating the functional relevance of specific retinal ganglion cell types and their brain projections with a goal to improve our basic understanding of vision processing and non-image forming nuclei.

Name: Teresa Ramirez Contact: Teresa_Ramirez@Brown.edu, (401) 444-7392, Liver Research Center, 55 Claverick Street, 4th Floor, Providence, RI 02903 Keywords: Alcohol, liver, insulin resistance, ER stress & lipid accumulation Techniques: ELISAs, qRT-PCR, liver slice culture, tissue processing, and electron microscopy Summary: My research focuses on the roles of insulin resistance and ceramide-mediated lipotoxicity as propagators and perpetuators of hepatic ER stress due to alcohol exposure.

Name: Nedyalka “Nelly” Valkov Contact: Nedyalka_Valkov@Brown.edu, CoroWest Center Room 5206 Keywords: Cardiac remodeling, microRNAs expression, regulation, Cardiac fibroblasts Techniques: Primary cell isolation and culture, real-time PCR, immunoblotting, in vivo hemodynamic measurement with pressure-volume catheters Summary: My research focuses on microRNAs, which are newly identified, essential regulatory molecules in both cardiac development and disease. I investigate their expression, regulation and role in regulating cardiac fibroblast function in the normal and diseased heart.

New Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology Students

PhD Program

Hawasatu Dumbuya

Cheri Liu

Tracey Suter

Valerie Zabala

Biotechnology

PhD Program

Name: Christopher Baker Contact: Christopher_Baker@Brown.edu, x-3-3171: Bio Medical Center Room 377 Keywords: Polymers, Drug Delivery, Biotechnology, Controlled Release, Experimental Surgery Techniques: DSC. FTIR, XRD, SEM, Microsurgery Summary: My research interest lies in the modification and enhancement of polymer by utilizing physical methods of manipulation as well as introducing certain drugs or materials for controlled release.

Name: Vérida “Vé” Léandre Contact: Verida_Leandre@Brown.edu, x3-3171, BioMedical Center Room 377 Keywords: Brown Adipose Tissue, Adipse-Derived Stem Cells, Material/Polymer Science, Drug Delivery Techniques: Microsphere and nanosphere fabrication (solvent evaporation & PIN), primary stem cell culture, small animal surgical models, mathematical modeling, SEM, immunocytochemistry, fluorescence microscopy Summary: My research involves studying and inducing differentiation of adipose tissue-derived stem cells collected by polymer implants. I aim to use brown adipose tissue as a therapy for obesity and Type II Diabetes. I also collaborate on a project modeling intestinal uptake of insulin administered orally.

ScM & 5th Year Master’s Program

Name: Elaina Atherton Contact: Elaina_Atherton@Brown.edu Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Darcy H. Gagne Contact: Darcy_Gagne@Brown.edu, (401) 825-8732: C.R. Bard, Inc. (Davol) Keywords: Soft Tissue Reconstruction, General Surgery Techniques: In vivo Surgical Implantation, Laparoscopy, Mechanical Testing, Histological Analysis Summary: My research interest lies in the area(s) of soft tissue repair, minimally invasive surgery, absorbable synthetic materials, biologically-derived materials, anti-microbial technologies (combination devices), regenerative medicine, and surgical sealants.

Name: Sarah Mirza Contact: Sarah_Mirza@Brown.edu, Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Boyan Pavlov Contact: Boyan_Pavlov@Brown.edu Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Mandy Pereira Contact: Mandy_Pereira@Brown.edu Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Daniel Saenz Contact: Daniel_Saenz@Brown.edu Keywords: Techniques: Summary:

Name: Robert Walsh Contact: Robert_Walsh@Brown.edu Keywords: Mutation Detection, Biomarkers, Cancer Techniques: DNA extraction, PCR, HPLC Summary: My research focus is to discover and identify oncogene mutations and correlate their presence with patient response to therapy. The goal is to establish more personalized treatments based on individual genomic makeup.

New Biotechnology Students

PhD Program

Elisabeth Evans

ScM & 5th Year Master’s Program

Victoria Adewale

Ramon Castillo

Chetram Deochand

Michael Fitzgerald

Christos Galanis

Cindy Oh

Devon Poeta

Jessica Sadick

Daniel Smith