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.

Dewmi studied ferroptosis modulators and worked in novel protein interaction identification and characterization during her PhD. Apart from keeping the lab smoothly running, Dewmi research is focused on the role of endocytosis in hematopoietic progenitors.

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. In our group, she is working on identifying transcriptional and postranscriptional regulators of GPRASPs in the context of hematopoiesis. Rumela received the Michigan Pioneer postdoctoral fellowship in 2025.

Alexus' research is focused on the functional differences of HSC from different origins.

Claire is characterizing a model of recurrent periodontitis and its long-term consequences in hematopoiesis.

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

Arya is an undergrad form the Biomolecular Science program. He is interested in transcriptional regulation of GPRASPs.