Click Here for Thesis Level Students

September 2008

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

Maria Armakola

Kate Christison-Lagay

David Combs

Laura Felgendreger

Mike Hart

Brad Hollidge

Jesse Isaacman-Beck

Li Jiang

David Kahn

Lindsay Morgan

Emilia Moscato

Armen Moughamian

Toni-Moi Prince

Karthik Raju

Nicole Senecal

Kevin Snyder

Vanessa Troiani

Victoria Tsai

Ryan Tsou

Fair Vassoler

Samantha White

Coby Zyskind

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

Rebecca Chance (Greg Bashaw)

Mimi Cushman (James Shorter)

Terry Dean (Amita Sehgal)

Dan Denman (Diego Contreras)

Meng-meng Fu (Erika Holzbaur)

Jing Guo (Virginia Lee)

Jiwei He (Jonathan Raper)

Lynn Lohnas (Michael Kahana)

Alexandra Neuhaus-Follini

Jason Moore (Max Kelz)

Dustin Shilling (Kevin Foskett)

Kristy Simmons (Vijay Balasubramanian)

Alemji Taku (Jonathan Raper)

Leslie Tanyu (Dennis Kolson)

Harry Ting (Kelly Jordan-Sciutto)

Melissa Wang (Isabel Muzzio)

Tanya Weerakkody (John Wolfe)

Lindsay Yurcaba (Nancy Bonini)

Sean Sheffler-Collins (seani)

Thesis Level Students

 
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Matt Abramian (Steve Moss) (abramian@)

Defne Amado (defne)

Marybless Atienza (marybles)

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

Matt Bevers (Bob Neumar) (mbbevers@)

Marco Boccitto (boccitto)

Michael Bonner (Murray Grossman) (michafra)

 
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Greg Carr (Irwin Lucki) (carrg@)

Michael Castle (John Wolfe) (jcastle)

Denise Cook (Dennis Kolson) (denisera)

LaTasha Crawford (latashac@vet)

Amanda Crocker (Amita Sehgal) (acrocker@)

Stephanie Cross (crosss)

 
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Nooreen Dabbish (nooreen)

Nick Delong (Mike Nusbaum) (ndelong@)

Michelle Dumoulin (dumoulin)

Greg Dunn (gdunn)

 
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Laurel Ecke (laurele)

Andrew Fairless (fairless)

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.

Amy Gleichman (gleichma)

Nirupa Goel (Tracy Bale) (nirupa@)

Laura Gordon (laurac)

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@)

Britter Gundersen (brigitta)

 
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Michael Halassa (Phil Haydon) (mhalassa@)

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

Josh Hawk (Ted Abel) (hawk@)

Nina su (ninash)

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

David Hurtado (Virginia Lee) (dhurtado@)

Jared Iacovelli (Josh Dunaief) (jarediac@)

Josh Jacobs (Mike Kahana) (jojacobs@)

 
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Rishi Kalwani (Josh Gold) (rishiki@)

Leo Kim (Virginia Lee) (leokim@)

Chih-Houng King (Steve Scherer) (chking)

Katie Kopil (Bob Neumar) (kopil)

Alexxai Kravitz ( Laura Peoples) (alexxai@)

 
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Vanisha Lakhina (Jonathan Raper) (vanisha@)

Jeff Law (Josh Gold) (lawtc@)

Anderson Lee (Minghong Ma) (acl@)

Brian Lewandowski (Marc Schmidt) (bcl@)

Maria Lim (Bob Kalb) (amlim)

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

 
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Marek Ma (mamarek@uphs.upenn.edu)

Steve Mague (Julie Blendy) (smague@)

Kristen Malkus (Harry Ischiropoulos) (malkus)

Jeremy Manning (Michael Kahana) (manning3)

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

Brett McCray (J. Paul Taylor) (brettm)

Jon McEuen (Tracy Bale) (mceuen@)

Kayla Metzger (Sheryl Beck)(metzkerk)

Matthew Nassar (Josh Gold) (nassarr)

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

Ksenia Orlova (Pete Crino) (korlova)

Michael Paine (Bob Neumar) (paine)

MacLean Pancoast (Jeff Golden) (macleanp@)

 
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Jon Raksin (Marc Schmidt) (jraksin@)

Chenere Ramsey (Benoit Giasson) (cpr@)

Jason Rodriguez (Mike Nusbaum) (rcjason)

 
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Anup Sharma (Jim Eberwine) (anup)

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.

Kartik Sreenivasan (Amisha Jha) (kks@)

 
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Sarah Teegarden (Tracy Bale) (sarahtee@)

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

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.

Chris Vecsey (Ted Abel) (cgvecsey@)

Leif Vigeland (Larry Palmer) (vigeland@)

Cristin Welle (Diego Contreras) (cgwelle@)

Jason Wester (Diego Contreras) (jasoncw@)

Rachel White (Mike Nusbaum) (whiters@)

Matt Wimmer (Ted Abel) (mwimmer@)

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. "

Solsire Zevallos (Doug Epstein) (solsire@)