Meet the members of the Basil Lab!
Current Members
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Read More about Maria Basil
Maria Basil
Principle Investigator
maria.basil@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Maria is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Medicine. Maria is a Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician and dedicated to taking care of patients with chronic lung disease. Maria earned her MD and Ph.D. here at Penn as part of the Best MSTP in the galaxy™, where she studied mechanisms that governed cell fate decisions in T lymphocytes in the laboratory of Dr. Steven Reiner. She then completed her Internal Medicine Residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital before returning to Penn for Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship. During her fellowship, she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Edward Morrisey. Before all that, she grew up in Buffalo, New York. She does not miss the snow. She is still sad when the Bills lose.
She now runs her own laboratory within the Penn-CHOP Lung Biology Institue (LBI) and the Penn Cardiovascular Institute (CVI), and she is also a member of the Penn Institute of Regenerative Medicine (IRM). In the LBI, Maria runs the Human Lung Tissue Bank. She is also a mentor in the Penn MSTP program and a member of the Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Group in DSRB and G&E.
When she is not seeing patients or doing science, Maria can often be found reading yet another historical fiction novel, listening to Taylor Swift, enjoying coffee, tea of all varieties, or one of the many awesome restaurants near her South Philly home. Most of her time, however, is spent with her husband and two young boys, watching toddler soccer games, and helping to assemble Legos.
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Read More about Andrew PetersonAndrew Peterson
Lab Manager & Research Associate
Andrew Peterson
Lab Manager & Research Associate
Andrew comes to Philadelphia from North Carolina where he was a lab manager for Dr. Adam Akerman and worked on mouse models of aortic disease. Andrew now helps Maria manage the chaos of the Basil lab (which she mostly inflicts and then he fixes) while working on strategies to understand cell fate relationships in the distal human airways. In his free time Andrew enjoys exploring Philadelphia bakeries and coffee shops with his boyfriend, Drew.
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Read More about Mijeong KimMijeong Kim
Postdoctoral Fellow
Mijeong Kim
Postdoctoral Fellow
Mijeong, a postdoctoral fellow co-advised by Dr. Maria Basil and Dr. Edward Morrisey, majored in Nutrition in South Korea. Intrigued by the regulation of gene expression and cell identity during her studies, she pursued fundamental biology, earning her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from The University of Texas at Austin. Under Dr. Jonghwan Kim, she focused on transcriptional regulations in human placenta development. Currently, Mijeong explores transcriptional regulators and mechanisms during lung regeneration. In her free time, she enjoys baking and exploring cafes.
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Read More about Dominique DoyleDominique Doyle
Graduate Student
Dominique Doyle
Graduate Student
Dominique is the Basil lab's first grad student from Penn’s Cell and Molecular Biology PhD Program with a concentration in Developmental, Stem Cell, and Regenerative Biology (CAMB DSRB). During her rotation, she quickly decided she loved the lung, the people, and the RedBull, and so she stayed for her graduate thesis work. As a New Jersey native, she came here directly from undergrad as a Science and Technology: Molecular Biology major with experience as a research assistant in Dr. Matthew Niepielko’s lab. She has an interest in identifying cell fates and characterizing differentiation mechanisms behind progenitor cell types. In her free time Dominique enjoys traveling, trying new restaurants, and spending time with her two cats - Appa and Momo.
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Read More about Abby MarquisAbby Marquis
Research Associate
Abby Marquis
Research Associate
Abby is originally from New Mexico but found her way to Philadelphia to play Division III softball for Haverford College, where she majored in Chemistry and designed novel bio-probes. Abby soon decided she wanted to pursue medicine, and spent some of her time collecting human tissue samples for the Basil lab and their collaborators before joining the lab full time. In her free time, Abby loves weightlifting and going to Phillies games.
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Read More about Ayman AlwaqzahAyman Alwaqzah
Undergraduate Student and Mayock Summer Research Fellow
Ayman Alwaqzah
Undergraduate Student and Mayock Summer Research Fellow
Ayman is an Undergraduate Research Assistant from New York who joined the Basil lab after his experiences working in a local Philadelphia clinic. He has an interest in regenerative medicine and lung disease. Ayman's roles in the lab include but are not limited to complaining about Microsoft excel. Outside of the lab, he loves to learn and practice martial arts (in case he meets the excel development team).
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Read More about Yifan YangYifan Yang
Bioinformatic Specialist
Yifan Yang
Bioinformatic Specialist
Yifan joined the Basil lab as a bioinformatician. Before coming to Philadelphia, she earned her Ph.D. in Computational Biology from Purdue University. She is broadly interested in applying computational methods to solve medical problems. She is now working on a mitochondria tracing project using scRNA technology, trying to understand the cell fate transitioning in lung disease patients. In her free time, she enjoys swimming and jogging with her 14-year-old Jack Russell!
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Read More about Ellie SuhEllie Suh
Undergraduate Student
Ellie Suh
Undergraduate Student
Ellie is an undergrad research assistant from Maryland. She wants to major in Biology and minor in Nutritional Science. Ellie joined the lab to pursue her interest in regenerative medicine and gain research experience. When she’s not in classes or lab, she loves exploring the Philly food scene while rating her finds on Beli.
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Read More about Caitlyn LimbertCaitlyn Limbert
Undergraduate Student
Caitlyn Limbert
Undergraduate Student
Caitlyn is an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Basil Lab, fascinated by regenerative biology and disease pathology. She's on the pre-med track, fueled by passion and far too much coffee. She spends her free time cafe-hopping and diving into nonfiction psychology books. Don't hesitate to ask her for cafe spots around university city!
Basil Lab Alumni
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Read More about Ana LangeAna Lange
Research Associate
Ana Lange
Research Associate
Ana is the first research associate of the Basil Lab and what an amazing ride it has been!
Ana is a Philadelphia native who left briefly to attend Davidson where she majored in Chemistry and was a member of the Division 1 Diving team. Ana eventually turned her passions toward science and medicine, and has been working in the laboratory trying to untangle the transcriptional regulation of the cells of the human respiratory airways. In her free time Ana enjoys drinking bubble tea and playing with her dog, Hazel.
After the most quality and exciting time in the Basil lab, Ana move to Nashville to pursue her MSTP at Vanderbilt University! We can't wait to see what she does next.
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Read More about Apoorva BabuApoorva Babu
Bioinformatic Specialist
Apoorva Babu
Bioinformatic Specialist
Apoorva was a bioinformatic specialist within the Penn Lung Biology Institute who worked with the Basil lab on various single cell and bulk sequencing projects. She enjoys coffee and sending time with her daughter, who sometimes, but not often, likes to sleep at night. She has moved to a nearby institution so we can still have coffee breaks and updated pics of her awake daughter.
