Lab Members
Vidya Gopalakrishnan, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Research in my lab is directed towards identifying novel therapeutic targets for medulloblastoma, a pediatric brain tumor. A major focus of our research involves the study of developmental signals required for normal cerebellar development as a means to understand the molecular basis and pathophysiology of medulloblastoma. A second major goal of our research is to identify epigenetic alterations of gene expression in pediatric brain tumors and determine the therapeutic efficacy of drugs that reverse these changes in mouse models of brain tumors.
Yanwen Yang
Laboratory Manager
Yanwen is our lab manager, and assist with onboarding personnel. He is an expert in cell and molecular biology and performs highthroughput epigenetic screens.
Donhang Cheng, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dong studies the role of arginine methylation in the development of pediatric brain tumors. He is experienced with genetically engineered mouse models and biochemical techniques.
Shinji Maegawa, Ph.D.
Instructor
Shinj investigates changes in DNA methylation during normal lineage specification of neural stem cells and employs bioinformatics tools to define alterations in this modification during genesis of pediatric brain tumors.
Shavali Shaik, Ph.D.
Instructor
Shavali studies the role of chromatin remodeling in modulation of the tumor vasculature in medulloblastoma and DIPG. He performs high throughput chemical screens to identify synthetic lethal interactions.
Tara Dobson, Ph.D.
Research Investigator
Tara investigates the role of repressive histone modifications in pediatric brain tumors and for targeted therapy. She is well-versed with loss and gain of function screens to identify therapeutic vulnerabilities.
Jyothishmathi Swaminathan, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Jyo studies chromatin organization during cell fate transitions in neural stem cells and determines how its mis-organization drives aberrant expression of immune modulatory genes and tumorigenesis.
Juan Bournat, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Juan performs preclinical studies to enable the development of novel imaging tools to monitor the fate of therapeutic cells in pediatric brain tumor models.
Amanda Haltom, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Mandy investigates the role of protein ubiquitination during neurogenesis and tumor progression. She employs biochemical techniques for in vitro studies and uses genetically engineered mice and xenograft models to study tumor development.
Sreepradha Sridharan
Graduate Research Assistant
Sreeja is interested in understanding the role of the ploycomb repressive complex in controlling neural specification and brain tumor development.
Ajay Sharma, M.S.
Senior Research Assistant
Ajay maintains our transgenic mouse colonies. He performs in vitro cytotoxicity assays with drugs and CyTOF analyses to monitor the origin and evolution of treatment unresponsive cells.