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.
Assistant Professor
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.

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.

Ashutosh Singh, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ashutosh investigates the role of protein ubiquitination during neurogenesis and tumor progression. He employs biochemical techniques for in vitro studies and uses genetically engineered mice and xenograft models to study tumor development.