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Meelad M. Dawlaty, PhD

Principal Investigator

Associate Professor, Department of Genetics

Associate Professor, Department of Developmental & Molecular Biology
Member, Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research

Education:

  • B.A. Biology and Chemistry Concordia College, Moorhead MN, USA 2000-2003

  • Ph.D. Biomedical Sciences Cancer Biology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, MN, USA               (Advisor: Prof. Jan van Deursen, PhD) 2004-2008

  • Postdoctoral Training: Epigenetics of stem cells & development, Whitehead Institute/MIT Cambridge, MA, USA (Mentor: Prof. Rudolf Jaenisch, MD) 2009-2014

Teaching:  

  • Molecular Genetics (Fall), Gene Expression (Winter), Stem Cells Development & Disease (Spring)

-------------------------------- Support Staff ------------------------------

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Jessica Benitez, M.A.

Technician/Lab Manager

Education:

  • M.A. Biology, SUNY College at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

  • B.A. Biology, Biotechnology, Environmental Earth Science, SUNY College at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

About Jessica: 

Jessica joined the lab in May 2024 after completing her Masters degree at the State University of New York (SUNY) College at Buffalo and working as technician in Genetics labs. She oversees the daily lab maintenance, mouse colony genotyping and management, and experiments in the lab.

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Bioinformatician

 

We are actively recruiting a bioinformatics analyst with expertise in NGS data analysis. Please see the links below to apply or send your application to meelad.dawlaty@einsteinmed.edu

-------------------------------- Postdoctoral Fellows ------------------------------

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Asmaa Abdullah, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Education:

  • Bachelor of Science, Biochemistry, National University of Malaysia, Malaysia

  • Master of Medical Science, Biochemistry, National University of Malaysia, Malaysia

  • Ph.D., Advanced Medical Science, Shiga University of Medical Science, Japan

About Asmaa:

Asmaa joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow in June 2024. She was previously working as postdoctoral fellow at Shiga University of Medical Science where she studied neurodevelopment. She investigates how  Tet-mediated DNA demethylation regulate the neural lineage and what implications it has for development and diseases.

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Sara Fielder, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Education:

  • B.A., Biology Bryn Mawr College, PA, USA

  • Ph.D., Genetics and Molecular Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

About Sara:

Sara joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow in November 2024. She was previously working as a postdoctoral fellow and staff scientist at Washington University School of Medicine where she modeled and studied rare genetic diseases in worms. She investigates how Tet proteins regulate lineage specification during development with implications for human diseases.

-------------------------------- Graduate Students ------------------------------

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Harmony Ketchum, BSc

Ph.D. Graduate Student

Education:

  • B.Sc. Allied Health Science and Biology, Grand Valley State University, Michigan, USA

  • Ph.D. Degree In Progress, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA

About Harmony:

Harmony joined the lab for her Ph.D. thesis work in March 2020. She comes a with Bachelor degree in Health Science & Biology followed by two years of research experience as a technologist at Einstein where she studied the role of Colony Stimulating Factor 1 Receptor (CSF-R) in macrophage and microglia biology using mouse models. She is interested in understanding how DNA methylation and demethylation dynamics are regulated by Tet enzymes during stem cell differentiation and embryogenesis.  

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Blake Ebert, BSc

M.D.Ph.D. Graduate Student

Education:

  • B.Sc Cellular and Molecular Biology Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, USA 

  • M.Sc. Human Nutrition and Biochemistry, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA 

  • M.D. & Ph.D. Dual Degree In Progress, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA

About Blake:

Blake joined the lab for his Ph.D. thesis work in September 2021. He comes with a bachelors degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology and a Masters degree  in Human Nutrition and Biochemistry. He joined the Einstein M.D. Ph.D. program in 2019. He is interested in studying how Tet enzymes regulate DNA oxidation and demethylation to influence gene expression programs in stem cells and during development

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Ian MacArthur, PhD

M.D.Ph.D. Student (in lab 2020-2024)

Thesis: Epigenetics of neural stem cell biology

Alumni:

 

Graduate Students:

Ian MacArthur, PhD (MSTP Student 2020-2024)

Julio Flores, PhD (MSTP Student 2019-2023)

 

Postdoctoral Fellows:

Stephanie Chrysanthou, PhD (Postdoc: 2017-2022)

Liyang Ma, PhD (Postdoc: 2017-2022)

Antoine Abou Jaoude, PhD (Postdoc: 2019-2021)

Qin Tang, PhD (Postdoc: 2018-2021)

Mirunalini Ravichandran, PhD, (Postdoc: 2017-2019)

Run Lei, PhD, (Postdoc: 2015-2017)

 

Technicians:

Hruthvik Bhavsar, BA (Technician/Lab Manager: 2022-2024)

Nick Cheng-Yen Huang, BA (Technician/Lab Manager: 2020-2022)

Joune Lee, BA (Study Coordinator/Lab Manager: 2017-2020)

 

Clinical Fellows:

Kaitlin Haines, MD (Fellow: 2020-2021)

Katherine Howgego, MBCHB, (Fellow: 2015-2016)

Undergradaute interns:

Christopher Hunter, Summer 2019 (Senior, University of New Mexico, NM)

Jessica Chung, Summer 2016 (Senior, Smith College, Northampton, MA)
Benjamin Cattau, Summer 2016 (Junior, Haverford College, Haverford, PA)
Desiree Williams, Fall 2015 (Senior, John Jay College, New York City, NY)
Omer Naseer, Summer 2015 (Junior, Queens College of CUNY, Flushing, NY)

Julio Flores, PhD

M.D.Ph.D. Student (in lab 2019-2023)

Thesis: Epigenetics of embryonic and hematopoietic stem cells

Collaborators
Keisuke Ito, MD PhD (Professor of Cell Biology and Medicine, Einstein)

Masako Suzuki, PhD (Assistant Professor of Nutrition, Texas A&M University)

Deyou Zheng, PhD (Professor of Genetics and Neurology, Einstein)

Anirban Maitra, MD (Professor of Pathology, MD Anderson  Cancer Center)

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