Program Role/Specialized Tasks: In charge of all HUMANOID's services and recharges (internal, external and industry), and project and personnel management, regulatory approvals and administrative tasks.
Project Lead: Crohn's Disease; Modeling Human Lung Infections (bacteria and viruses); IBD-immune cell co-cultures; Modeling microbial infection and clearance in the gut.
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Program Role/Specialized Tasks: In charge of HUMANOID's flow cytometry and microscopy services.
Project Lead: Cancer stem cell targeted therapeutics (colon, biliary, pancreatic, gastric and esophageal).
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Sophia Carpinelli, Email: scarpinelli@health.ucsd.edu Program Role/Specialized Tasks: In charge of HUMANOID's media preparation, QC testing, and
Project Lead: Intestinal and Lung fibrosis; Modeling tumor-immune cell co-niche; AI-based organoid imaging; Ulcerative colitis modeling.
|  Alayna Zolot, Email: azolot@health.ucsd.edu
Program Role/Specialized Tasks: Laboratory and Area Safety Manager; In charge of HUMANOID's media preparation, QC testing, shipping and handling.
Project Lead: Cancer ImmunoRx and Ulcerative colitis modeling; NASH (non-alcoholic steato hepatitis).
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 Kennith Carpio-Perkins, Email: kcarpioperkins@health.ucsd.edu
Program Role/Specialized Tasks: Infection and Immunity; Organoid isolation, culture and biobanking.
Project Lead: Host-pathogen interplay; Microbial clearance; Anti-microbial therapeutics.
|  Samuel Williams, Email: saw028@health.ucsd.edu Program Role/Specialized Tasks: Organoid isolation, culture and biobanking.
Project Lead: [Coming soon]. |
Annelies Ondersma, Email: aondersma@health.ucsd.edu
Program Role/Specialized Tasks: Organoid isolation, culture and biobanking.
Project Lead: [Coming soon].
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Affiliated Scientists
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Gajanan D. Katkar, Ph.D.
Email: kgajanandattatray@health.ucsd.edu
Assistant Project Scientist,
Incoming Director, Agilent Center of Excellence
Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Role: Lead, expertise in functional immunology
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Saptarshi Sinha, Ph.D.
Email: sasinha@health.ucsd.edu
Postdoctoral Scholar,
Incoming Director, Center for PreCSN
Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Role: Lead, computational vetting of models.
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Student Trainees
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 | Frances Feng; Email: frfeng@ucsd.edu
Building a career in biomedical sciences as a student research assistant at HUMANOID.
Project: Modeling Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
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| Jasmin Amezcua; Email: jaamezcua@ucsd.edu
Building a career in biomedical sciences as a student research assistant at HUMANOID.
Project: Modeling Lung Cancer Microenvironment and immunoRx.
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| Rand Ato; Email: rato@ucsd.edu
Bioengineering: Biotechnology Student at UC San Diego
Building a career in biomedical sciences as a student research assistant at HUMANOID.
Project: Modeling Inflammatory Bowel Disease
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Pictured from left to right (Dec 2023): Pradipta Ghosh, Kenneth Carpio-Perkins, Sophia Carpinelli, Alayna Zolot, Courtney Tindle, Kevin Perry, Annelies Ondersma, Gajanan Katkar, and Samuel Williams.
Visiting Scholars and Scientists
| Nicolas Aznar, Ph.D.Permanent CNRS Researcher Principal Investigator CNRS - Centre national de la recherche scientifique · Lifetime Civil Servant
HUMANOID's internal R&D is committed to embrace better disease modeling approaches. We are excited to host Nicolas Aznar at HUMANOID: Human Organoid Center of Research Excellence (CoRE) in the summer of 2023 as a Visiting Professor from Cancer Research Center of Lyon in France. Looking forward to testing an innovative 3D cell culture system developed by Dr. Aznar, which drastically increases the number of stem cells over repeated passage. This strategic partnership allows us to join forces to identify and #eliminate Cancer Stem Cells.
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BLAST FROM THE PAST
Scooby-Doo themed Halloween Gathering (Nov 2022): Pictured from left to right, Sophia Carpinelli, Alayna Zolot, Courtney Tindle, Eleadah Vidales and Kevin Perry.
HUMANOID-affiliated trainees, faculty, and what we do...
Trainees engaged in disease-modeling studies with HUMANOID through collaborations: Pictured from left to right, Madhubanti Mullick (tumor-immune cell co-culture), Mahitha Shree Anandachar (IBD modeling, microbial clearance); Sophia Carpinelli (lung cancer, lung and intestinal fibrosis, Ulcerative Colitis); Alayna Zolot, Courtney Tindle (core director, multiple projects, organoid-stromal cell co-culture studies), Eleadah Vidales and Kevin Perry (IBD, Reprogramming cancer stem cells in adenocarcinomas); Saptarshi Sinha (Computational vetting of disease models); Raktim Mukherjee (modeling NASH); Gajanan Katkar (organoid-immune cell co-culture studies). Kneeling in front: Pradipta Ghosh, Executive Director and Founding co-Director, HUMANOID.
PAST MEMBERS:
Staffs:
Eleadah Vidales (2021-2023)- Immediate next position: Research Associate II at Stemson Therapeutics. Follow her on LinkedIN to know where she is now.
Vanae Goheen-Holland (2021-2022)- Immediate next position: Research Associate II at Stemson Therapeutics. Follow her on LinkedIN to know where she is now.
Gabriela V. Sanchez (2021-2021)
Ayden G. Fonseca (2020-2022)- Immediate next position: Clinical application specialist at INSIGHTEC. Follow him on LinkedIN to know where he is now.
Joshua Alcantara (2020-2022) - Immediate next position: PhD student at UC Irvine Cellular and Molecular Biosciences. Follow him on LinkedIN to know where he is now.
Jasper Lee (2020-2022) - Immediate next position: Two-year Masters program at UCLA. Follow him on LinkedIN to know where he is now.
Stella-Rita Ibeawuchi (2019-2022)- Immediate next position: Research Scientist at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Follow her on LinkedIN to know where she is now.
Dominik Stec (2019-2021) - Immediate next position: Graduate student, UT Austin to work on interdisciplinary biological physics. Follow him on LinkedIN to know where he is now.
Mackenzie R. Fuller (2019-2020)- Immediate next position: International English Teacher, positioned in South Korea. Aspiring graduate student. Follow Mackenzie on LinkedIN to know where she is now.
Amanraj Claire (2020-2020)- Immediate next position: Scientific researcher at Cedar Sinai. Follow Amanraj on LinkedIN to know where he is now.
Trainees:
Priti P. Maity, Ph.D. (2020-2021)- Immediate next position: follow him on LinkedIN
Visiting Scholars, Scientists and Affiliates:
Ranajoy Chattopadhyay, Ph.D. (2019-2021), Senior Cell Biologist, Cytvia Inc (GE): LinkedIN
Dave Yu, Ph.D. (2019-2021), Vice President of Operations, Cell Applications Inc.: LinkedIN
Alex Noskov, Ph.D. (2019-2021), Operations Manager, Cell Applications Inc.: LinkedIN