Lab Members
Marty Alani
they/them
Graduate student
Favorite fly gene name: omelette
Marty studies how the germ plasm co-opts conserved cell-division machinery to form the primordial germ cells in the syncytial fly embryo.
Mikala Capage
Graduate student
Favorite fly gene name: coracle
Mikala studies germ cell proliferation during the larval stages of ovary development. She is particularly interested in understanding how germ cell proliferation is regulated by surrounding somatic cells, and aims to uncover mechanisms of growth control during organ development using the ovary as a model system.
Christoph Gaebelein
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: Yippee
Christoph likes to think of cells as squishy little factories and wants to find out how they tune their physical properties in order to do what they do. To find out, he uses a mix of omics, biochemistry and dynamic imaging.
Jay Goodman
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: son of sevenless
Jay studies aging and rejuvenation in Drosophila embryos and oocytes. He has built tools to identify long-lived proteins in the fly germline, and is interested in the role of chaperones in protecting oocytes from age-related defects.
Sherilyn (sheri) Grill
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: whale
Sheri is interested in the germ cell transcriptional activation program, and what happens when germ cells fail to activate properly.
Itzel Ishida
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: shaker
Itzel is interested in the coordination of developmental timing, and whether signaling through small molecules can act as ‘clocks’ that regulate the timing of embryogenesis. She also researches piRNA adaptation to transposon threat.
Jake
Administrative assistant
Favorite fly gene name: furry
Jake attends most of our meetings, and so is an expert in all things germ cells. He is most interested in stealing a bite of your food and belly rubs.
Badri Krishnan
Senior Lab Manager / Scientist
Favorite fly gene name: sunn
Badri is interested in understanding the interaction of Oskar and Mitochondria during embryo development. He is finding ways to disrupt this interaction using various Oskar mutants.
Feiyue Lu
Post-doc (Joint with Lionnet Lab)
Favorite fly gene name: white
Feiyue uses transcription from the histone locus body in the polyploid Drosophila nurse cell as a model to study the dynamics of RNA PolII activity.
Kangbo Ng
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: squash
KangBo is studying how an organ is built from just a group of cells. Using the ovary as a model, he approaches this by viewing organogenesis as an emergent process: how do individuals (the cells) self-organize into a community (the organ), and how, in turn, does the community shape individuals to fulfill specific roles? This dynamic interplay likely underpins the remarkable precision and robustness of development.
Lake V. Palmeri
they/them
Technical assistant
Favorite fly gene name: Indy (i’m not dead yet)
Melissa Pamula
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: bag of marbles
Melissa studies how the diverse functions of mitochondria regulate Drosophila oocyte and embryo development. She is particularly interested in mitochondrial metabolism during the egg to embryo transition.
Juni Rajakumar
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: loki
https://www.arjunarajakumar.com/
Juni uses the non-model ant genus Monomorium to study the developmental drivers and consequences of a sterile/fertile caste dichotomy. He has also worked on germ cell quality control in Drosophila.
Fred Rubino
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: toll
frederick.rubino@nyulangone.org
How do intracellular bacteria and their hosts become interdependent? Using Wolbachia infection of Drosophila as a model system, Fred is interested in the mechanisms by which endosymbiotic bacteria manipulate eukaryotic host cells in ways that benefit both host and symbiont.
Han Tran
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: peter pan
Han studies the formation and structure of ER subdomains. She discovered, and is characterizing the role of, a specialized ER compartment in the Drosophila nurse cells, and is interested in how the ER supports germline development.
Ana Tsai
Graduate student
Favorite fly gene name: gogo (golden goal)
Ana is interested in how a maternally deposited pioneer transcription factor influences germline continuity.
Julia Wucherpfennig
Post-doc
Favorite fly gene name: sturkopf
Julia studies the intracellular bacteria Wolbachia, which, much to the annoyance of her lab mates, live in the cells of many Drosophila lines and also in insects worldwide. She uses Wolbachia as a model to understand how hosts and symbionts interact at the molecular and cellular levels.
Henoc Zinga
Graduate student
Favorite fly gene name: vasa
Henoc studies the RNA helicase Vasa/DDX4 and its function in regulating germline biology, focusing on translation of germ granule RNAs and transposon regulation.