Team

Antonio Morales-Hernández joined the laboratory of Drs. Pedro Fernández-Salguero and Jaime Merino, where he earned his PhD in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Genetics at the University of Extremadura (Spain). His PhD project focused on the function of the dioxin receptor in cell differentiation and lung regeneration. While pursuing this work, he received excellent training in molecular biology, genetic mouse modeling, cell differentiation and trafficking and the relatively unexplored and exciting field of transposable elements (TEs). This work piqued his interest in Stem Cell Biology and so he decided to pursue further training in this area and therefore joined Dr. Shannon McKinney-Freeman’s laboratory at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for his postdoctoral training. Since then, he gained expertise in hematopoietic stem cell (HSCs), which has allowed him to develop his own research program focused on elucidating how loss of GPRASP proteins regulate HSCs function along with side projects focused on general HSCs biology. He is the recipient of the NIH/NIDDK K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Grant.

Ishani is  a Biotechnology enthusiast with advanced technical skillset focused towards developing Therapeutics, Regenerative medicine technologies , and other related immunotherapeutic discoveries. Ishani is working on identify potential transcriptional regulators of Gprasp genes in the context of hematopoiesis.

Sixin is a PhD student from the Oral Health Sciences program. Before joining the University of Michigan, she obtained my Bachelor of Medicine in Stomatology in Nankai University and her Master of Dental Medicine in Sichuan University, two prestigious universities in China. Sixin is focused on understanding the signaling cascade downstream GPRASP in hematopoiesis. In combination with the use of advanced omics techniques, her work will inform how GPRASPs regulate HSC behavior and drive their functional heterogeneity at multiple levels.

Rumela got her PhD from the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, where she studied the molecular regulation of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) ‘phenotypic switch’ associated with spiral artery remodeling during rat embryonic development.

Madeleine is a undergrad student from the Chemistry program. She is involved in the development of molecular tools to study the effects of GPRASP expression manipulation.

Riley is a Master student from the OHS program. His project is focused on the role of GPRASP proteins in B cell lymphoma progression.