Postdoctoral Research Associate

• Optimizing ventral midbrain dopamine (VMDA) neuronal differentiation to promote synchronization of early neuro-developmental expression during VMDA neural differentiation in order to increase the yield of VMDA neurons after transplantation of human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived VMDA neural grafts in a rat model of Parkinsonian dopamine deficiency. I am currently developing a high-throughput drug screening assay utilizing ventral midbrain dopamine neuron specific reporter cell lines to optimize differentiation.
• Generating regional-specific astrocyte progenitors from Parkinson’s disease patient-derived hPSCs that are specific to the ventral midbrain dopamine neurons and cortical neurons for transplantation experiments which will study in vivo disease mechanisms. Our group is creating 20 cryovial stocks each of cortical-specific and dopamine neuron-specific astrocyte progenitors generated from 3 different mutations associated with Parkinson’s disease from 3 different patients per mutation, and it also includes 3 control lines for a total of 24 cell lines.

‍

Graduate Research Assistant (PhD)

• Generated lentoid bodies from human pluripotent stem cells via directed differentiation and cell sorting of rudimentary lens markers
• Created a novel protocol for olfactory differentiation in human pluripotent stem cells
• Determined that precise timing of bone morphogenetic protein promoted optimal expression of olfactory placode and neural progenitors
• Derived 20% of olfactory sensory neurons and 40% of gonadotropin-releasing hormone neurons from human pluripotent stem cell derived olfactory progenitors
• Investigated how the bone morphogenetic protein pathway distinguishes between the ectodermal regions and affects pan-placode ectoderm differentiation
• Published 1 first author peer-reviewed publication (featured on the journal cover) and 1 review paper.

‍

Other experience includes Research Assistant III, Graduate Research Assistant (MS), Undergraduate Research Assistant (BS)