Laboratory Members
Lab Manager
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Read More about Taylor Tredinnick, M.S.
Taylor Tredinnick, M.S.
taylor.tredinnick@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
I received my B.S. in both biology and secondary education at Temple University, and M.S. from Thomas Jefferson University. I worked as a high school chemistry teacher before pursuing a career in biomedical research. My prior research has primarily focused on the characterization of druggable targets in AML, ALL, and BRCA+ cancers, with high-throughput screening of small molecule libraries to identify drug candidates, with my masters thesis focused on the development and characterization of novel CRISPR-based editing systems to be used in gene therapy for hematologic malignancies. Currently, I'm working in a dual role as a research scientist, and as the manager of the Gill lab. My current research project is on the expansion of human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HPSCs) using cell-penetrating peptides carrying proliferation-promoting transcription factors.
TCE & PICI Staff
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Read More about Shoghag Panjarian, PhD
Shoghag Panjarian, PhD
Project Manager of TCE & PICI
shoghag.panjarian@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Shoghag earned her B.Sc. in Clinical Laboratory Sciences from Haigazian University and her M.Sc. in Human Physiology from the American University of Beirut. She completed her Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh under the mentorship of Prof. Thomas E. Smithgall, where her research focused on the allosteric regulation of tyrosine kinases.
She then completed postdoctoral training in cancer epigenetics in the laboratory of Prof. Jean-Pierre Issa at Temple University, investigating DNA methylation signatures in aging tissues and cancer. Following this, Shoghag served as an Assistant Professor at the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, where her work focused on the role of transposable elements in breast cancer. In parallel, she led the establishment of the cancer biobank and oversaw patient engagement initiatives for rare diseases and hereditary cancers. At Coriell, she also served as Vice Chair of the Institutional Review Board, supporting executive leadership and facilitating complex discussions related to human subjects research and regulatory strategy.
In June 2024, Shoghag joined the laboratory of Dr. Saar Gill at the University of Pennsylvania. In her current role as Program Manager for the University of Pennsylvania’s Translational Center of Excellence and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, she serves as a strategic and operational partner to the Center’s Director, coordinating high-priority initiatives across preclinical research, IND development, and clinical trials.
Staff Scientists
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Read More about Olga Shestova, PhD
Olga Shestova, PhD
Senior Research Investigator
shestova@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Olga has been in the Gill lab since 2013 which has allowed her to be involved in exploring various projects as well as seeing the evolution of projects going from bench to bedside. She has experience in using basic techniques as well as the most advanced techniques and approaches in the field to work as part of a team whose goal is to develop therapeutic treatments for cancer patients.
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Bioinformatics
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Read More about Naz Buhn
Naz Buhn
Research Specialist
Naz.Buhn@PennMedicine.upenn.edu
Naz earned a B.S. in Biological Sciences with minors in Bioinformatics and Computer Science from California Polytechnic State University. As an undergraduate, she conducted computational bioinformatics and deep learning research. Following graduation, she worked as a bioinformatics consultant on a translational computational biology project at Pheast Therapeutics. In December 2025, she joined the Gill Lab at the University of Pennsylvania as a Research Specialist, contributing to bioinformatics analyses across ongoing research projects.
Post Doctoral Researchers
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Read More about Brandon Simone, PhD
Brandon Simone, PhD
brandon.simone@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Brandon earned a BS in Biochemistry and a BA in Biological Sciences at the University of Buffalo. He then went on to receive his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota under the mentorship of Dr. Stephen Ekker. At Mayo Clinic Brandon worked on developing gene editing technologies for translational and basic science applications including cell therapy. In March of 2022, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Saar Gill at the University of Pennsylvania as a Postdoctoral fellow to bridge his genome engineering training with cellular therapy. In Dr. Gill’s lab, Brandon is using genome engineering tools to understand the epigenetic factors that contribute to T cell persistence.
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Read More about Sara Sleiman, MD
Sara Sleiman, MD
sara.sleiman@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
I received my medical degree from the American University of Beirut in June 2020 . Following medical school, I sought to gain experience in translational research prior to applying for a residency position. I joined the Gill lab in January 2021 and have been exploring the world of CAR T cell therapy in AML.
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Read More about Fiona O'Connell, PhD
Fiona O'Connell, PhD
fiona.oconnell@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Fiona completed her BSc Ed in Physical Chemistry at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Following her teaching experience, she earned her MSc in Cancer Research with a focus on cancer epigenetics from the National University of Ireland, Galway. Subsequently, Fiona was awarded the Breakthrough Cancer Research Musgrave Scholarship to pursue her PhD studies under the supervision of Professor Jacintha O’Sullivan at Trinity College Dublin. Her PhD research investigated the influence of obesity, fatty acids, and current treatment modalities on the immune-metabolic profiles of adipose tissue in esophageal adenocarcinoma. As part of the Gill lab, Fiona’s work will now focus on investigating metabolism and cellular engineering in upper gastrointestinal cancers.
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Read More about Astrid Beerlage, MD
Astrid Beerlage, MD
astrid.beerlage@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Astrid completed medical school at Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany, followed by hematology residency at University Hospital Basel, Switzerland. Previously, she worked in the lab of Lukas Jeker at the Department of Biomedicine (DBM), University of Basel, focusing on cell shielding strategies to improve allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for patients with AML. Now, in the Gill Lab, she is working on innovative CAR-T cell therapy approaches for treating AML.
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Read More about Tim Grob, MD, PhDTim Grob, MD, PhD
Tim Grob, MD, PhD
Tim Grob obtained his MD from Amsterdam University Medical Center, and PhD at the Erasmus University Cancer Institute in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He performed research to refine the molecular diagnostic classification of myeloid malignancies and pioneered the use of molecular residual disease detection by next-generation sequencing in acute myeloid leukemia. After finishing his residency Internal Medicine and Hematology in 2024, he joined the Gill lab as a postdoctoral research fellow to study mechanisms of T-cell mediated cell death in acute myeloid leukemia, with the ultimate goal to engineer novel adoptive cell therapies to improve outcome for patients with acute myeloid leukemia.
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Read More about Laura Volta, PhD
Laura Volta, PhD
laura.volta@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Laura obtained a B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Bologna and her M.Sc. from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, with a focus on the development and functionality of antibody-drug conjugates in the group of Prof. Massimo Morbidelli. She then received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, under the supervision of Prof. Dario Neri, focusing on antibody-based strategies for the treatment of Acute Myeloid Leukemia.
From 2020 to 2024, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Markus Manz at the University Hospital Zurich, where she worked on adaptor-mediated CAR T-cells and bispecific T-cell engagers for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. In January 2025, she joined the laboratory of Dr. Saar Gill at the University of Pennsylvania as a Postdoctoral Fellow, where she is investigating in vivo CAR T-cell generation strategies for cancer immunotherapy.
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Read More about Federico Rossari, MD, PhD
Federico Rossari, MD, PhD
Federico.Rossari@PennMedicine.upenn.edu
Federico Rossari is a visiting scholar and Oncology Fellow at San Raffaele University Hospital in Milan, Italy, with a research focus on in vivo gene and cell therapies for solid tumors. He completed his medical training at the University of Pisa and Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy. Federico obtained his PhD under the supervision of Luigi Naldini, MD, PhD, at the San Raffaele–Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (SR-Tiget), where he worked on macrophage and T-cell engineering for the targeted treatment of glioblastoma.
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Read More about Heribert Playa-Albinyana, PhD
Heribert Playa-Albinyana, PhD
Heribert.Playa-Albinyana@PennMedicine.upenn.edu
Heribert Playa-Albinyana is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratory of Dr. Saar Gill. His research focuses on CAR-T cell therapy in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), with an emphasis on strategies to enhance its efficacy through metabolic reprogramming and immune engineering. He obtained his PhD in Biomedicine from the University of Barcelona, where he studied the biology of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and Richter transformation. Before joining Penn, he was a postdoctoral researcher at IDIBAPS (Barcelona), investigating CAR-T cell therapies and the immunological microenvironment of CLL using 3D models and spectral flow cytometry.
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Read More about Oren Gozlan, PhD
Oren Gozlan, PhD
orengogo@gmail.com
Oren Gozlan is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratory of Dr. Saar Gill. His research focuses on developing in vivo CAR-T cell generation strategies that bypass the need for ex vivo cell extraction and manipulation. He obtained his PhD in biochemistry studying the molecular regulation of Notch signaling, with an emphasis on how E3 ubiquitin ligases differentially control Notch ligand activity.
Clinical Fellows
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Read More about Nathan Welty, MD, PhD
Nathan Welty, MD, PhD
Hematology/Oncology Instructor
nathan.welty@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Nathan is a hematology/oncology fellow investigating novel approaches to solid tumor immunotherapy using genetically engineered myeloid cells. Before coming to Penn for residency and fellowship, he completed MD/PhD training at the University of Minnesota in Dan Kaplan’s lab, where he studied myeloid regulation of tissue-resident immunity in the GI tract.
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Read More about Anand Bhagwat, MD, PhD
Anand Bhagwat, MD, PhD
Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Instructor
anand.bhagwat@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Anand is from San Diego California. He is currently working on AML resistance to cell therapy.
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Read More about Neel Nabar, MD, PhD
Neel Nabar, MD, PhD
Hematology/Oncology Fellow
neel.nabar@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Neel Nabar is a Hematology/Oncology Fellow interested in cellular therapies for leukemia. Neel did his medical training at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, and residents at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. His PhD was through the NIH-Karolinska Institute Graduate Partnership Program, where he worked with John Kehrl and Mikael Karlsson on inflammatory signaling in myeloid cells in viral infection and cancer.
Graduate Students
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Read More about Mara Davis, M.S.
Mara Davis, M.S.
PhD Student, Gene Therapy and Vaccines
mara.davis@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
I received my B.S. and M.S. in genetics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where I studied the effects of microRNAs on the metastasis of breast and lung cancer. My current focus is working on engineering pathogenic protein-targeting CAR-macrophages for neurodegenerative diseases.
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Read More about Joanne Baek
Joanne Baek
PhD Student, Bioengineering
joanne.baek@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
I graduated with a B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, where I investigated the effects of tissue stiffness on breast cancer metastasis and ageing. My current research focuses on gene editing hematopoietic stem cells for the treatment of AML.
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Read More about Orlando Arevalo
Orlando Arevalo
MD/PhD Student, Gene Therapy and Vaccines
orlando.arevalo@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Orlando hails from the Maryland side of the DMV. He completed his BS in both Chemical-Biological Engineering and Biology at MIT, where he also studied genetically engineered yeast and the metabolic profiles of transformed cells. After MIT, he worked at a biotech startup, engineering hematopoietic stem cells and ex-vivo differentiating them to generate a new cell therapy platform. He then came to Penn and is pursuing an MD/PhD with his PhD focused on treating cancer and other diseases using synthetic biology and engineered stem cells.
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Read More about Bruno Casino Remondo, M.S.
Bruno Casino Remondo, M.S.
PhD Student, Bioengineering
bruno.casinoremondo@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
I graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Biological Engineering from the University of Idaho, where I was also a Division 1 tennis athlete. My previous research experience includes working on magnetic nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery for cancer therapies and developing a flexible biomimetic human spine model for effective drug delivery to the brain. In 2025, I graduated with my M.S. in bioengineering with my thesis project performed in the Gill Lab. I used the COMET platform for multiplex immunofluorescence to study tissue resident memory T cells in graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) in BOS lung patients and to study the engraftment and effect of engineering CAR-macrophages targeting pathogenic proteins for neurodegenerative diseases. In August of 2025, I began my PhD in bioengineering, which will also be done in the Gill Lab.
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Read More about Winnie Nguy
Winnie Nguy
PhD Student, Pharmacology
Winnie.Nguy@Pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Winnie graduated from Northeastern University in Boston with a B.S. in Biology, where she studied the effects of combination therapy in CLL at the Brown Lab at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Prior to starting her graduate studies at Penn, she worked at Be Biopharma developing a B cell/plasma cell therapy platform. She is now looking forward to learning more about AML/cancer biology and hematopoiesis.
