Jain Lab

Rajan Jain
PI
 jainr@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Raj is a physician-scientist, practicing cardiologist, and proud Berkeley alum. All of his post-medical school clinical training and post-doctoral research training was completed at Penn. When he's not in the lab, Raj loves to watch the NFL and help his daughters tend to their garden. Also, he's always up for a conversation about 90s hip-hop or the food scene in Philly. Check out a short interview he was a part of discussing his background and the lab. See below if you're interested in joining the team. 

Parisha Shah
Senior Research Investigator
 parisha@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Parisha is a Senior Research Investigator — she's the one who people go to figure out how to get things done. She's a graduate of Juniata College and the U. of Chicago and recently completed a post-doc in Shelley Berger's laboratory. Scientifically, she's interested in how nuclear architecture informs heart development and disease. ​When she’s not at lab, you can find Parisha chasing down her children, cooking, or frantically trying to finish a book in time for book club. 

Qiaohong Wang
Research Specialist
 qiaohong@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Qiaohong is a technician in the lab — our resident expert on all matters related to cell culture, mouse genetics, in vitro differentiation and more. Qiaohong has yet to meet a cell line or mouse that won’t behave in her capable hands. She was formerly in Jon Epstein's lab and has worked with (or rather, put up with) Raj for several years. She's never afraid to take on a new, wild project. When she's not in the lab, she's usually wondering if her daughter is studying enough at college.

Wonho Kim
Postdoctoral Fellow
 Wonho.Kim@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Wonho completed his PhD in developmental genetics in Korea and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Baylor. He's interested in learning more about stem cell biology and genome organization. Wonho is supported by postdoctoral fellowship award by the American Heart Association. Oh, also —  he's a big Dodgers fan. We'll have to see if we can turn him into a Phillies fan! 

Ashley Karnay
Graduate Student
 Ashley.Karnay@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Ashley is a graduate student who came east from California. After completing her masters at Drexel University, she's pursuing her PhD at Penn. She's a part of the Genetics and Epigenetics graduate group. She tells Raj all the places to hit up in Hawaii — and has caught a 135 lb fish in Alaska!! Ashley was initially awarded a T32 slot, but most recently was awarded an F31 award from the NHLBI. Ashley's working on understanding how specific transcriptional mechanisms maintain and/or establish spatial positioning of the genome. 

Bailey Koch-Bojalad
Postdoctoral Fellow
 Bailey.Koch@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Bailey is a postdoctoral fellow who joined the lab in mid-2020. She's coming back to the Philly area after completing her graduate work at Florida State. Bailey is awarded a spot on the CVI/Cardiovascular T32, and she's focused on deciphering how genome folding is established. Bailey loves her dog Luka, loves to travel, and will school you on the basketball court. 

Garrett Santini
MTR student
 Garrett.Santini@Pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Garrett is from Jersey and currently a Penn medical student. He was one of a few medical students to successfully compete for a position in the Masters in Translational Research and spending a year entirely in the lab before he goes back to clerkships. Garrett is working with Parisha to better understand how spatial positioning of chromatin is established and the implications for inherited cardiomyopathies. Garrett wants to go into Cardiology down the line...but we won't discuss his choice in NFL teams...

Rachel Yang
Sarnoff Fellow
 rachel.yang@ucsf.edu

Rachel hails from the Bay Area is a stellar medical student at UCSF who is taking a year out between her 3rd and 4th years of medical school to spend time at the bench. She applied for and received the extremely prestigious Sarnoff Cardiovascular Fellowship. She's mentored by Priscilla Hsue and Arun Padmanabhan at UCSF. In the lab, she's working with Bailey and Wonho to understand the determinants of genome folding and their relevance to various cardiac diseases. She's a super avid runner and is quickly navigating biking in philly traffic!!! 

Zach Gardner
MD/PhD student
 Zachary.Gardner@Pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Zach is an MD/PhD student who completed his undergraduate at Yale. After undergrad he worked in the Zhang laboratory at the Broad. He's got quite the green thumb as he's successfully resuscitated multiple succulents that were on the way out. Zach is figuring out the mechanisms underlying how cell-type specific genome folding is established using live imaging! 

Kaitlyn Shen
MD/PhD student
 Kaitlyn.Shen@Pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Kaitlyn is an MD/PhD student at Penn who completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago and is originally from CT. She's a phenomenal baker - and usually Raj's girls eat all the cookies Kaitlyn cooks before anyone can get to them. Kaitlyn is deciphering the the mechanical and epigenetic inputs which maintain spatial positioning of the genome. 

Richard Abdill
Bioinformaticist
 Richard.Abdill@Pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Richard is our lab informaticist. Rich obtained his PhD in Bioinformatics from the University of Minnesota. Prior to his graduate school work - Rich was a journalist! When he's not cranking through datasets, Rich is making witty jokes and helping the other trainees learn informatics. Raj is sure he'll be able to turn Rich into an F1 fan! 

Ricardo Linares Saldana
MD/PhD student
 Ricardo.linaresaldana@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Ricardo is an MD/PhD student in the lab. His thesis work is focused on how nuclear architecture influences cardiogenesis and how mitotic bookmarking is regulated during myocyte lineage specification. Ricardo completed his undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins and worked at the NIH prior to coming to Penn. Ricardo is supported by an F31 award from the NHLBI! When he’s not in the lab, Ricardo is walking his dog, playing squash, or being active in the grad school community. Ricardo is the lab’s resident photographer and takes joy in reminding Raj how old he is. 

Nikhita Bolar
Postdoctoral Fellow

Gwang Hyeon Eom (Eom)
Visiting Faculty

Piyush Pillarisetti
Undergraduate student

Nick Rizer
Medical student

Garrett Hill
Undergraduate Student

Liam Stanton
Undergraduate student

Joshua Rhoades
Bioinformatician