People
Current Members
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Read More about Mark Sellmyer, MD, PhD
Mark Sellmyer, MD, PhD
Principal Investigator
mark.sellmyer@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
215-573-3212
LinkedIn
Mark was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he developed a deep appreciation for corn-on-the-cob and a love of Husker football. After soaking in the sweetness of a college town in the midwest, Mark attended M.I.T. and majored in Chemistry (BS) with a concentration in Music. During his undergraduate degree, Mark joined Joe Jacobson's group called the Molecular Machines Lab in the M.I.T. Media Lab. The interdisciplinary nature of that environment, combining engineering with chemistry and biology, was inspiring and fostered the habit of doing experimental science at the same time as attempting to accomplish other things. That habit transformed into a full-blown MD/PhD in the Stanford MSTP program. At Stanford, Mark trained in chemical biology with Tom Wandless and found translational applications for new technologies using molecular imaging with Chris Contag. The natural combination of these fields are the foundation of our research today. Mark then came to the University of Pennsylvania as a research track radiology resident and completed a Nuclear Radiology fellowship. If he isn't in his office thinking “deep thoughts” or reading scans as a radiologist in the clinic, he's probably playing with his three kids, his wife, and their black lab in the backyard while growing and eating corn.
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Read More about Kexiang Xu
Kexiang Xu
Lab Manager
Kexiang.Xu@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Kexiang grew up in the city of Zhuji in Zhejiang Province, China. She graduated from of Zhejiang University, majoring in Molecular Biology. She briefly worked as engineer in Zhejiang Zhenyuan Pharmaceutical Company. Upon making the leap to the USA, Kexiang worked in Dr. Nancy Bonini’s Neuroscience Lab at UPenn for almost 8 years. Then, she worked with Dr. Christopher Chen in Bioengineering and Dr. Hakon Hakonarson at CHOP. Kexiang has already made the lab more efficient and productive as a lab manager, and moreover loves to cook for her family and friends, especially Chinese food. Potluck time!
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Read More about Swarbhanu Sarkar, PhD
Swarbhanu Sarkar, PhD
Research Specialist
Swarbhanu.Sarkar@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Born and raised in the ‘City of Joy’, Kolkata, India, Swarbhanu truly believes in one chant: Keep Calm and Carry On. Although that’s easier said than done in the Sellmyer lab. Soon after receiving his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, he moved to the Jeongsoo lab at Kyungpook National University School of Medicine, in South Korea (2013-2019) to work as a postdoctoral fellow. He then traversed to TCG Lifesciences, a contract research organization in India, to work as a Research Scientist (2019-2022). Swarbhanu has experienced the fields of synthetic organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and radiopharmaceuticals, and has expertise in radiolabeling small molecules, peptides, and proteins with 64Cu, 89Zr, 68Ga, 131/124I and 18F. As our sole radiochemist in the Sellmyer lab, his current research focuses on the development of radioactive tracers for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and infection. We believe that one day, in the not too distant future, his dream of scuba diving with sharks will come true. Good luck Swarbhanu! You got this!
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Read More about Jeannie EtersqueJeannie Etersque
Graduate Student (Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics)
Email Jeannie Etersque
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Jeannie Etersque
Graduate Student (Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics)
etersque@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Growing up on the south shore of Long Island, Jeannie spent summers surfing at the beach and eating clams on the half shell. For undergraduate, Jeannie moved to New Jersey and studied Chemistry at Fairleigh Dickinson University where she also played volleyball and earned a Master’s in Teaching. From there, she moved to Bethesda, MD to work with Victor Pike at the National Institutes of Health on C-11 and F-18 chemistry. She then started her PhD at Penn in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics (BMB) graduate group and is working on chemical biology approaches for translational imaging. When Jeannie is not in the lab rotovapping, she is probably hiking, biking, online shopping, or unpacking 13 Tupperware containers for her lunch.
P.S. She officially has the lab’s cutest dog (sorry JD and Mark).
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Read More about Gabrielle BlizardGabrielle Blizard
Graduate Student (Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics)
Email Gabrielle Blizard
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Gabrielle Blizard
Graduate Student (Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics)
gblizard@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Gabrielle comes all the way from the west coast (best coast), after growing up in sunny and sandy San Diego. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Master of Science in Biology at UC San Diego in La Jolla, California. During this time, conducted vaccine research in Dr. Jiang Zhu’s lab at Scripps Research and learned molecular imaging under Dr. Patrick McConville at Invicro in the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine. Shortly after graduation, she journeyed over to Penn to start her PhD in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics (BMB) graduate group where she brought Gen Z energy to our lab working on gated protein expression and imaging genetic medicines. In her spare time, Gabzies reads fictional novels with her 3-year-old cat, Dogsie, scouts east coast beaches, and goes shopping alone.
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Read More about Andres Fernandez del CastilloAndres Fernandez del Castillo
Graduate Student (Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, MD-PhD)
Email Andres Fernandez del Castillo
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Andres Fernandez del Castillo
Graduate Student (Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, MD-PhD)
Andres.FernandezDelCastillo@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Andres hails from Newton MA, where he grew up with his 8 siblings and two very exhausted parents. He graduated from Notre Dame with majors in chemistry and philosophy of science, working in synthetic orgo lab under Rich Taylor during the school semesters. Over the summers he did research at the Center for Systems Biology headed by Ralph Weissleder, where under the irreplaceable guidance of Jonathan Carlson he fell in love with the magic of chemical biology, studying click-to-release chemical tools and DNA-based cleavable linkers. After a gap year at the Mikula lab in Vienna spent further studying click-to-release chemistry, he came over to Penn to start an MD/PhD in the BMB graduate group. Now trapped in the Sellmyer lab, Andres works on PET imaging of infectious diseases and targeted protein degraders of neurodegeneration-related protein fibrils. When not being annoyed by Jonathan, he can usually be found around the lab showing people pictures of his latest nephew.
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Read More about Jonathan Pham
Jonathan Pham
Graduate Student (Pharmacology, MD-PhD)
Jonathan.Pham@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
A native of the Silicon Valley, Jonathan began his adult life by abandoning the sunny skies of California to study Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Michigan (#goblue). There, he also worked on the development and manufacture of radiopharmaceuticals with Dr. Peter Scott. He began his tenure at Penn in 2020 as an MD/PhD student and has since become half of a doctor (wow!).
Jonathan is an amateur foodie, aspiring musician (he's currently trying to pick up Spanish guitar - we'll see how that goes), and ardent traveler and outdoorsperson. Outside the lab, you might find him on a long bike ride, scrolling Twitter, or bothering Andres... we're betting on the latter two though.
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Read More about Angela Gong
Angela Gong
Graduate Student (Chemistry, MD-PhD)
Angela.Gong@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Angela grew up in Lexington, MA and loved New England fall so much that she attended Yale for undergrad, majoring in chemistry. At Yale, she worked with David Spiegel and Craig Crews, synthesizing targeted protein degraders, falling in love with automatic rotovaps, and very lightly dabbling in biology. She sadly left the pretty autumn leaves of New England to explore the food scene in Philly, where she is the newest member of the Sellmyer lab’s growing MD/PhD army. In lab, she can be found trying to do biology so that she can become an actual chemical biologist.
She loves food (cooking, baking, and eating), her cat Kiki, plants, and cheese.
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Read More about Cosette Tomita
Cosette Tomita
Graduate Student (Bioengineering, HHMI)
Cosette.Tomita@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Cosette was born and raised in the Chicago land area (Go Sox!). She attended University of Missouri where she studied Chemistry and Biology and worked under Dr. Susan Lever’s laboratory, synthesizing sigma-2 radiotracers and mastering flash column chromatography. After graduation, she headed to the East Coast where she worked at a radiopharmaceutical company in New Jersey. Due to the gaping hole in her heart for academia, she swam across the Delaware to work at the UPenn Cyclotron Facility and soon after joined the Bioengineering Master’s program. When not in the basement synthesizing radiotracers, Cosette spends time with her furry roommates, a black cat named Arlo and a 110-pound white dog named Beyza. She also is currently studying Japanese.
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Read More about Tommy Nguyen
Tommy Nguyen
Undergraduate (Biochemistry)
tommyng@sas.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Tommy is a native of Atlanta, Georgia that has taken the “city of brotherly love” by storm. As a Penn undergraduate in the Chemistry and Biochemistry program, he is making the most of his academic experience, and has joined our lab as a part of the Vagelos MLS program. He works alongside one of our PhD students, Jeannie, to advance his training in biochemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, and computational biochemistry. Tommy is naturally intuitive and hard working, and inspires the jaded graduate students with his youthful spirit and Gen Z humor. He aims to attend graduate school, either an MD or PhD program, and will use his time in the Sellmyer lab to develop his scientific interests in translational research. Tommy’s favorite snacks are donut peaches, artisan bread, and Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups from the farmers market. And no, his name is not Thomas. It's Tommy.
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Read More about Lily Min
Lily Min
Undergraduate (Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Biophysics)
lilymin@seas.upenn.edu
LinkedIn
Lily's life journey began with her birth in our nation's capital. Prior to coming to Penn for her undergraduate studies, she blessed the Mid-Atlantic with residences in Maryland and Virginia (go 'Hoos!). She currently spends her days as a scholar of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Biophysics. In the lab, you'll find her hard at work with Kim preparing plasmids, running PCRs, or transducing cells. When not engaging in edification, you might find her downing pre-workout (not in lab though! #OHSA) or napping, as she can fall asleep literally anywhere (like, LITERALLY anywhere).
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Alumni
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Read More about Justin Northrup, PhD
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Read More about Nitika Sharma, PhD
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Read More about Daniel Jacome, PhD
Daniel Jacome, PhD
Graduate Student (Pharmacology)
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Senior Consultant, Trinity Life Sciences
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Read More about Iris Lee, PhD
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Read More about Kimberly Edwards, PhD
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Read More about Andrew Ruff, MDAndrew Ruff, MD
Medical Student
Andrew Ruff, MD
Medical Student
Radiology Resident, NYU Langone Health
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Luis Vázquez Rivera
Post-bacc (PennPREP)
Luis Vázquez Rivera
Post-bacc (PennPREP)
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