Click Here for Thesis Level Students

September 2006

FIRST YEAR CLASS (@mail.med.upenn.edu)

Michael Bonner (michafra)

Laura Carlson (laurac)

Michael Castle (jcastle)

Denise Cook (denisera)

LaTasha Crawford (latashac@vet)

Stephanie Cross (crosss)

Michelle Dumoulin (dumoulin)

Greg Dunn (gdunn)

Laurel Ecke (laurele)

Nina Hsu (ninash)

Katie Kopil (kopil)

Maria Lim (amlim)

Kristen Malkus (malkus)

Jeremy Manning (manning3)

Adrian Mak (siu)

Kayla Metzger (metzkerk)

Matthew Nassar (nassarr)

Ksenia Orlova (korlova)

Michael Paine (paine)

MacLean Pancoast (macleanp)

Jason Rodriguez (rcjason)

David Seelig (dseelig@vet)

Sean Sheffler-Collins (seani)

Leif Vigeland (vigeland)

Matt Wimmer (mwimmer)

SECOND YEAR CLASS (@mail.med.upenn.edu)

Defne Amado (defne)

Marybless Atienza (marybles)

Marco Boccitto (boccitto)

Nooreen Dabbish (nooreen)

Andrew Fairless (fairless)

Amy Gleichman (gleichma)

Britter Gundersen (brigitta)

Michael Halassa (mhalassa)

Chih-Houng King (chking)

Brett McCray (brettm)

Anup Sharma (anup)

Jason Wester (jasoncw)

Thesis Level Students

 
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Matt Abramian (Steve Moss) (abramian@)

Prin Amorapanth (Anjan Chatterjee) (amorapan@)

 
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Alison Barnstable (Kelly Jordan-Sciutto) (abarnsta@)

Matt Bevers (Bob Neumar) (mbbevers@)

 
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Greg Carr (Irwin Lucki) (carrg@)

Cassia Cearley (John Wolfe) (cassiac@)

Hope Coleman ( Greg Bashaw) (hcoleman@)

Patrick Connolly (Josh Gold) (patrick3@)

Amanda Crocker (Amita Sehgal) (acrocker@)

 
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Lauren Daniele (Ed Pugh) (ldaniele@)

Nick Delong (Mike Nusbaum) (ndelong@)

 
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Yanshan Fang (Amita Sehgal) (yanshanf@)

Keith Feigenson (Judy Grinspan) (kfeigens@)

Carl Fulp (Jeff Golden) (fulp@)

Now that the "no new neurons in adult mammalian brain" dogma has been thoroughly dismantled, and the original observations made by Altman and colleagues in the 1960s have been accepted as canonical, the observation that new neurons can be created throughout life raises the possibility to use them as replacement therapy in humans. Targeted synchronous apoptotic lesions of select neural pathways of mammalian and avian CNS result in the proliferation of endogenous neural stem/progenitor cells, migration of those cells to the site of injury, and subsequent cellular replacement of injured cells. It has now been well documented that following various clinically-relevant insults to mammalian brain (e.g. seizures, ischemia, traumatic brain injury, etc.), there also appears to be an increase in proliferation of putative stem/progenitor cells within the neurogenic niches (i.e. the dentate gyrus and subgranular layer of the hippocampus and the subventricular zone); however, somewhat paradoxically this apparent recapitulation of development or attempted mounting of a regenerative response fails to result in cellular replacement or functional recovery after traumatic brain injury. My goals are to further characterize the effects of traumatic brain injury on the endogenous population of stem/progenitor cells in the subventricular zone, elucidate the molecular mechanisms responsible for the observed post-injury increase in proliferation, determine at what point the neurogenic program (e.g. survival, differentiation, migration, neuritogenesis, etc.) fails to result in cellular replacement, and to design novel strategies to coax this population of cells to replace those cortical cells and neuronal circuits that are lost following experimental brain injury.
Publications in preparation or in review:
Raghupathi R, Muir JK, Fulp CT, Pittman RN, Grady MS, McIntosh TK. "Acute alterations in mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling following traumatic brain injury: implications for posttraumatic cell death." Submitted.
Fulp CT, Raghupathi R, Waxman EA, Krajewski S, Reed JC, McIntosh TK,. "A Pathway of Neuronal Cell Death Induced by Traumatic Brain Injury: regionally-distinct and biphasic activation of caspase-8, caspase-3, cytochrome c, and caspase-9." In preparation.
Published abstracts:
Raghupathi R, Fulp CT, Waxman EA, Krajewski S, Reed JC, McIntosh TK. (2001) "Differential caspase activation after brain trauma." Soc Neurosci Abstr. 31. The 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA. November 15, 2001.
Watson DJ, Longhi L, Fulp CT, McIntosh TK, Wolfe JH. (2001) "Lentiviral transduction of beta-galactosidase into experimentally-injured mouse brain." The 19th Annual National Neurotrauma Symposium, San Diego, CA. Novermber 9, 2001.
Fulp CT, Raghupathi R, Siman R, McIntosh TK. (2000) "Traumatic brain injury induces upregulation of cytosol-localized procaspase-3 and mitochondrial-localized activated caspase-3." Soc Neurosci Abstr. 30. The 30th Annual Meeting for the Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, LA. November 9, 2000.
Raghupathi R, Muir JK, Fulp CT, Pittman RN, Grady MS, McIntosh TK. (2000) "Alterations in mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling following traumatic brain injury." J Neurotrauma 18:952. The 18th Annual National Neurotrauma Symposium, New Orleans, LA. November 4, 2000.

Matt Giampoala (Laura Peoples) (giampoal@)

Nirupa Goel (Tracy Bale) (nirupa@)

Pallavi Gopal ( Jeff Golden) (gopal@)

John Graziotto (Eric Pierce) (graziotto@)

BS ‘00 U Pittsburgh Neuroscience
A part-time lab job in a neuroscience laboratory induced John to switch from a biology to a neuroscience major. An NIMH fellowship allowed him to devote the school year and summers to research in a lab whose focus is oxidative stress and Parkinson's Disease. John's research project was to determine the role of the high affinity DA transporter protein (DAT) in the selective toxicity of DA. Using two different approaches the results demonstrated that it is necessary for DA to be taken up by the DAT and have access to intracellular targets of modification in order for it to be toxic to DA terminals. This experience has allowed John to learn some techniques and has given him a real taste of what graduate research might be like. He likes it. He was also able to present his research at the Soc for Neuroscience Meeting last year.

Todd Greco (Harry Ischiropoulos) (tgreco@)

Gerald Griffin (Lori Flanagan-Cato) (gdg@)

Tamar Gur (Julie Blendy) (tamargur@)

 
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Cara Harley (Lori Flanagan-Cato) (cfharley@)

Ali Harrist (Francisco Gonzalez-Scarano) (aharrist@)

Josh Hawk (Ted Abel) (hawk@)

Ted Huang (Ted Abel) (tedhuang@)

Ethan Hughes (Rita Balice-Gordon) (ehughes@)

David Hurtado (Virginia Lee) (dhurtado@)

Jared Iacovelli (Josh Dunaief) (jarediac@)

Josh Jacobs (Mike Kahana) (jojacobs@)

Liz Janss (Greg Bashaw) (ejanss@)

Yang Jin (Peter White) (yajin@)

 
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Rishi Kalwani (Josh Gold) (rishiki@)

Leo Kim (Virginia Lee) (leokim@)

Kristin Koch (Peter Sterling) (kochk@)

Alexxai Kravitz ( Laura Peoples) (alexxai@)

Cathryn Kubera (Phil Haydon) (ckubera@)

My interest in neuroscience developed while working on a project involving a fatal neurodegenerative disease called Batten's disease. Since then my sights have broadened. In my rotation in the fall I mutated the Spike gene of the Murine Hepatitis Virus, which serves as a model for multiple sclerosis, in order to try and abolish the demyelination of axons that the virus induces. This semester I'll be working in a lab that focuses on traumatic brain injury. In particular, I'll be looking at the ability of transplanted neural stem cells to rescue injured tissue after traumatic brain injury in rats. Ultimately, I would like to focus my neuroscience career on the subject of traumatic brain injury, as there is so little that we know about it.

Romesh Kumbhani (Larry Palmer) (romesh@)

 
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Vanisha Lakhina (Jonathan Raper) (vanisha@)

Jeff Law (Josh Gold) (lawtc@)

Anderson Lee (Minghong Ma) (acl@)

Brian Lewandowski (Marc Schmidt) (bcl@)

Katie Lindl (Kelly Jordan-Sciutto) (klindl@)

Ingrid Lund (Amy Brooks-Kayal) (ilund@)

Alice Luo (Gary Aston-Jones) (alluo@)

BA ‘00 NC State, Raleigh Psychology
It is the diversity of neuroscience that attracts Alice. From her own experience she already realizes that using a variety of approaches leads to a much better understanding of a problem. Last year she worked on a project on olfactory impairments in G0 knockout mice. It incorporates both behavioral assays and molecular biology techniques to understand the function of axonal G-proteins in the olfactory system. She was able to work with a variety of people while on this project from geneticists to endocrinologists. She presented her findings at the Assoc for Chemoreception Sciences Conference.
At the moment her graduate school interests lean towards studying the neruological changes that contribute to drug addiction, and diseases such as schizophrenia.

 
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Marek Ma (mamarek@uphs.upenn.edu)

Steve Mague (Julie Blendy) (smague@)

Juan Ramon Martinez-Francois ( Zhe Lu) (jramon@)

Joe Mazzulli (Harry Ischiropoulos) (mazzulli@)

During my undergraduate years at U Pittsburgh, I mainly used molecular biological techniques to study: 1) molecular mechanisms of cardiac hypertrophy with Alex Stewart 2) transcription regulation of gonadotropin releasing hormone with Don DeFranco, and 3) molecular differentiation of chick dorsal root ganglion cells with Eric Frank. Presently at U Penn, I am studying the role of oxidative and nitrative stress in neurodegenerative disorders with Harry Ischiropoulos. Parkinson¹s disease (PD) is characterized by selective dopaminergic cell death in the substantia nigra pars compacta and is manifested clinically by bradykinesia, resting tremor, and rigidity. Dopamine neurons are extremely vulnerable to oxidative injury due to their intrinsic propensity to generate free radical species making PD a suitable model to study mechanisms of oxidative and nitrative stress. I am using mainly biochemical methods to determine the effects of oxidative stress on tyrosine hydroxylase function, the rate-limiting enzyme in dopamine synthesis. In the future, I plan on using a combination of biochemical, molecular biological, and genetic techniques to determine the role of oxidative stress in PD.
Publication
1. Maeda T, Mazzulli JR, Farrance IK, Stewart AF. Mouse DTEF-1 (ETFR-1, TEF-5) is a transcriptional activator in alpha 1-adrenergic agonist-stimulated cardiac myocytes. J Biol Chem. 2002 Jul 5;277(27):24346-52.

Andy McClelland (Matthew Dalva) (acm9@)

Jon McEuen (Tracy Bale) (mceuen@)

Bridget Mueller (Tracy Bale) (muellerb@)

Natalia Nedelsky (J. Paul Taylor) (nedelsky@)

Jen Orthmann (Steve Scherer) (lorthman@)

Hemal Pathak (Doug Coulter) (pathak@)

Currently I'm doing an independent study in Doug Coulter's lab. Our work focuses on Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), a form of epilepsy that begins with some initial seizure inducing stimulus in apparently normal individuals and then develops into a chronic condition involving recurrent spontaneous seizures. TLE seizures involve hyper-excitability in hippocampal neurons which is where we do most of the work in the lab. Of particular interest then is the excitatory and inhibitory regulation of hippocampal neuron activity. For example, GABA receptors inhibit activity by opening chloride channels allowing inward flow of Cl- in effect clamping the membrane potential at that of chloride making depolarization/ action potentials more difficult to initiate. My project is to study the physiological changes in GABA receptor function in the early stages of the disorder - more specifically, changes in chloride regulation following the initial seizures. GABA receptors can modulate depolarization/ excitatory activity if the chloride gradient is such that the ions flow out of the cell rather than into it. Our hypothesis, based on work done in injury models and early evidence of changes in chloride transporter activity, that at least initially the chloride gradient changes allowing GABA induced excitation. The experimental techniqes include patch clamping cells (perforated patch) both in culture and in slices to determine changes in chloride concentrations and cell response. The next steps will be to measure how long this change lasts, further quantitate changes in chloride regulating proteins, and eventually to determine if there is in fact a mechanistic relationship between these correlative changes and TLE.

Caroline Patten (Steve Fluharty) (cpatten@)

AB ‘00 Princeton U Ecology/Evolutionary Biol Caroline ‘discovered' neuroscience in her junior year when she took a Cognitive Neuroscience class on Learning and Memory. After becoming hooked, she settled in a neuroscience lab for her senior thesis. Her projects focused on eating disorders - putting rats on different feeding cycles of glucose and lab chow in an attempt to reveal withdrawal using the Conditioned Place Aversion paradigm in one experiment and the Plus Maze test for anxiety in the other. Caroline graduated in June '00 and since then worked in the Scripps Research Institute, mainly on the neurobiology of relapse using animal models of cocaine and alcohol addiction. This experiment will hopefully determine the areas of the brain involved in relapse induced by alcohol-related environmental stimuli. For graduate work Caroline wants to explore the neurobiology of schizophrenia, depression, stress and other affective disorders.

 
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Petya Radoeva (Geoffrey Aguirre) (petya@)

Jon Raksin (Marc Schmidt) (jraksin@)

Chenere Ramsey (Benoit Giasson) (cpr@)

Gillian Ritson (J. Paul Taylor) (ritsong@)

Noah Roy (Leif Finkel/Diego Contreras) (nroy@)

 
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Jill See (Judy Grinspan) (jillsee@)

I am studying oligodendrocyte development in Judy Grinspan's laboratory. Oligodendrocytes, the myelinating glia of the CNS, arise as precursors in spatially restricted areas in the subventricular zone. These precursors then migrate to their final location and differentiate into mature cells. Although the developmental stages of differentiation have been described, the underlying processes are poorly understood. Currently, I am investigating both external and internal signals that may play a role in oligodendrocyte development, including bone morphogenetic protein, which diverts oligodendrocyte precursors from the oligodendrocyte lineage and seems to inhibit myelin production in maturing oligodendrocytes. I am also interested in how the transcription factor Nkx2.2 is involved in oligodendrocyte development, and I will soon be soon be investigating other factors that may be responsible for inducing or repressing oligodendrocyte differentiation.

Amanda Sheldon (Mike Robinson) (alsheldo@)

BA ‘01 U Delaware Neuroscience
Amanda is particularly interested in neuropharmacology and in the biological bases for psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression and schizophrenia. She would like to learn more about the mechanisms of action for the drugs that work on these disorders.
She has had experience in two labs - one in a Physical Therapy Department, where she collected and analyzed data on nervous system control of pointing tasks in healthy adults. The second was in the Biology Department, where she attempted to localize the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) to the luminal side of native avian renal proximal tubules. She has learned many techniques including electrophysiology.

Karolina Skibicka (Harvey Grill) (skibicka@)

Rachel Smith (Gary Aston-Jones) (rjsmith@)

As a biopsychology major at UC Santa Barbara, I was involved in drug abuse research for two years in a behavioral pharmacology lab. For my senior honors thesis I tested the role of serotonin in the anxiogenic properties of cocaine, using the elevated plus maze. In my first rotation at Penn I studied drug abuse in the lab of Gary Aston-Jones. I looked at the role of norepinephrine in the bed nucleus of stria terminalis as it relates to the enhanced preference for morphine that rats display in the conditioned place preference paradigm after five weeks withdrawal. Abnormal behavior is one of my main interests, so I would like to study drug abuse or psychological disorders in the future.

James Soper (Virginia Lee) (soper@)

Kartik Sreenivasan (Amisha Jha) (kks@)

 
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Sarah Teegarden (Tracy Bale) (sarahtee@)

Naomi Twery (Jonathan Raper) (ent@)

Before starting graduate school I worked at then SmithKline Beecham for a year doing process development research. After a year I moved to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as a research tech. I really started to become interested in the brain and nervous system there. Two and a half years later, I am a first year graduate student. My interests at this time are in the sensory systems and the mechanisms that allow integration of the constant input of sensory stimuli for conduction to the cortex.

Marieke van Vugt (Mike Kahana) (mvugt)

Chris Vecsey (Ted Abel) (cgvecsey@)

Melanie Watson (Nancy Bonini) (watsonme@)

Cristin Welle (Diego Contreras) (cgwelle@)

Rachel White (Mike Nusbaum) (whiters@)

Ryan Wyatt (Rita Balice-Gordon) (rwyatt@)

Bei Xiao (David Brainard) (beixiao@)

It is the curiosity about the human brain function and its consequences in the real life brought me to neuroscience. I believe all the philosophical problems will be solved once we understand our mind.

Generally, I am interested in the system level of neuroscience independent of research methods. Particularly, I am interested in realizing twin goals of constructing mathematical theories explaining sensory systems, learning and memory in terms of the organization of synaptic connectivity in the brain, and to use these theories to engineer artificial neural systems or other useful techniques.

In order to realize these ambitious goals, I am currently studying novel neural network modeling schemes in Dr. Finkel's lab and doing a rotation project of sequential pattern recognition through an attractor neural network. In the long run, I want to implement the network to a biological realistic hippocampus model and target interesting problem such as short-term memory. This project is interesting in its relation to the synaptic dynamics of some interneurons in primary visual cortex. "

Long Yang (Greg Bashaw) (yanglong@)

Lu Yin (Peter Sterling/David Brainard) (lyin@)

Solsire Zevallos (Doug Epstein) (solsire@)