SCSAP MEMBER PROFILES
Andreas Patsalos, M.S., Ph.D.
Andreas Patsalos, M.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Nagy Lab
Institute for Fundamental Biomedical Research
Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital
BIO:
- Undergraduate Studies: Studied biology at the University of Crete, focusing on the immune system’s control of physiological and pathological processes. Conducted research on 3D chromatin organization and epigenome in primary thymocytes.
- Graduate Studies: Pursued Master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the Medical Schools of the University of Crete and the University of Debrecen. Research focused on transcriptional regulation, acute inflammation, and skeletal muscle regeneration. Identified critical regulatory axes and pathways controlling repair-macrophage phenotypes and the communication between myeloid cells and muscle progenitor cells.
- Postdoctoral Studies: Joined Prof. Laszlo Nagy’s lab at Johns Hopkins University to examine the immune system’s role in dystrophy-related delays in muscle repair using high-dimensional omics and described the concept of “regenerative inflammation”.
- Current Focus: Applying knowledge gained from studying tissue repair and regenerative inflammation to drug discovery. Aim to develop novel immunomodulatory therapeutics for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Laurie Svoboda, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences
BIO: My research program is focused on understanding the sexually dimorphic effects of developmental chemical exposures on cardiac differentiation and long-term cardiovascular health. My team and I utilize mouse and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models to investigate how lead (Pb), PFAS, arsenic, and phthalate plasticizers disrupt the sex-specific epigenetic and metabolic processes that underlie normal cardiovascular development and differentiation. I am further interested in understanding how age, lifestyle habits, and genetic predispositions to cardiovascular disease interact with developmental exposures to impact long-term cardiovascular health. We focus on several mechanisms of chemical-induced disease, including metabolic perturbations, as well as alterations in DNA methylation, chromatin modifications, and non-coding RNA that impact expression of genes relevant to cardiovascular development and disease.
Lab Website: https://dogoodspilab.
Jianping Fu, Ph.D.
Department: Engineering
BIO: Dr. Jianping Fu is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Cell & Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Fu’s research focuses on stem cell bioengineering, developmental bioengineering, mechanobiology, and microfluidics. Dr. Fu and his co-workers’ research has contributed significantly to the emerging field of “Artificial Embryos”, which was selected by the MIT Technology Review as “10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2018”. Dr. Fu is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the BMES-CMBE Rising Star Award, the ACS Analytical Chemistry Young Innovator Award, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award, and numerous awards from the University of Michigan. Dr. Fu is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineers (IAMBE). Dr. Fu was a member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Guidelines Working Group (2019-2021), convened to review the oversight process and provide an update to the ISSCR guidelines on in vitro culture of human embryos, creation of stem cell-based embryo models, and in vitrogametogenesis. Dr. Fu currently is a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Special Interest Group (BMES CMBE-SIG) and the ISSCR Publication Committee. Dr. Fu also serves as the Associate Editor of npj Regenerative Medicine and is an Editorial Board Member of Cell Regeneration, Mechanobiology in Medicine, and Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.
J. Michelle Kahlenberg MD, PhD
J. Michelle Kahlenberg MD, PhD
Department: Internal Medicine and Dermatology
BIO: Dr. J. Michelle Kahlenberg MD, PhD is the Giles G. Boles MD and Dorothy Mulkey MD Research Professor of Rheumatology Associate Professor (soon to be Professor as of 9/1/2023) of Internal Medicine and Dermatology at the University of Michigan. She is the Vice Chair for Basic and Translational Research for the Department of Internal Medicine. Her clinical work is centered on the care of complicated lupus patients, including those with refractory skin disease. Her combines translational approaches using patient samples and murine models to uncover the mechanisms that drive lupus and other autoimmune diseases. In particular, she is focused on unraveling the pathogenic mechanisms in cutaneous lupus, the factors that drive photosensitivity, and how skin inflammation can influence systemic lupus activity. To learn more about her visit:
Xin Luo,Ph.D.
Department: Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics
BIO: My current research direction is about cell-cell communication and single-cell analysis. I will work on single-cell multi-modality integration in the future. Spatial single-cell analysis interests me a lot as spatial-level cell-cell communication has a lot to explore.
Joshua Sodicoff, B.S.E.
Joshua Sodicoff, B.S.E.
Department: Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics
BIO: In my current role, I am developing a methodology for cell type deconvolution of heterogeneous tissue for application to large scale spatial transcriptomic data collected on the murine brain. Determination of the distributions of both well characterized and novel types identified with scRNA-seq data will allow for integration with physiological data and inference on the impact of present fine tissue structures. More generally, I am interested in the spatial organization of biological structure as a manifestation of the emergent properties of small-scale biochemical and genetic interactions with applications in microbial ecology and evolutionary biology.
Mohammad Faisal Syed, Ph.D.
Mohammad Faisal Syed, Ph.D.
Department of Neurosurgery; Department of Cell and Developmental Biology; and Rogel Cancer Center, University of Michigan Medical School
Research Interests: We will use multimodal approaches; single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq), mass cytometry (cytometry time-of-flight (CyTOF) immune phenotyping), and multiplex imaging to discover the spatial phenotypic signatures of the tumor microenvironment in brain tumors.
Yuji Mishina, Ph.D.
Yuji Mishina, Ph.D.
William R. Mann Professor of Dentistry, School of Dentistry
Dr. Mishina’s laboratory is interested in functions of BMP signaling during bone development/remodeling and craniofacial development. Several specific projects include mechanisms of how osteoclasts regulate osteoblast functions in a spatiotemporal manner as a downstream event of BMP signaling, cell fate specification mechanisms in cranial neural crest cells towards chondrogenic lineage, impacts of nanofibrous biomaterials as stem cell niche, identification of crossover points between BMP signaling and mechanosensing for bone homeostasis, and investigation of cellular mechanisms of heterotopic bone formation to identify therapeutic options. We fully utilize genetically modified mouse lines in combination of cellular and molecular approaches including single-cell omics to uncover the above mentioned mechanisms.
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