Our Lab

Lab at PhD Terrace

Jane Skok, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Jane Skok's interest in visualizing recombination in individual cells, tracing the dynamic changes in chromosome architecture and nuclear location at different stages of this complex process, unites two lifelong passions: science and art.

After completing her PhD in Immunology and Genetics at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Jane took 10 years off and pursued training in art while caring for her young children. She then returned to science, joining David Gray's lab at Imperial College London as a postdoctoral fellow to study B cell biology and acquiring expertise in Mandy Fisher's lab to understand how the nuclear organization of the antigen receptor genes helps regulate V(D)J recombination.

Jane continued to pursue these questions in her own lab at University College London and elucidated the roles of Pax5 in locus contraction, and nuclear sub-compartmentalization in establishing maintaining allelic exclusion. In 2006 she was recruited to New York University School of Medicine, where her lab has revealed the activities of several signaling factors in guiding B cell development. Here, the Skok lab made the surprising discovery that the RAG proteins and the DNA damage response factor ATM help ensure allelic exclusion at the immunoglobulin gene loci (Hewitt et al., 2009). Furthermore they discovered that RAG2 C-terminus and ATM control RAG activity to limit the number of potential translocation substrates through modulation of 3D conformation (higher order loops) and repositioning of uncleaved loci to repressive pericentromeric heterochromatin. Ongoing work in the lab is focused on understanding how localized and long-range chromatin contacts impact gene regulation in health and disease settings.

For interview with Jane see: jem.rupress.org/content/205/7/1514.full.pdf

ORCID

Theodoros Sakellaropoulos, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Theodoros.Sakellaropoulos@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:
PhD student, NTUA, Greece 2014-2018

Giulia Cova, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Giulia.Cova@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:

Postdoctoral Fellow: Stefan Mundlos Lab, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany
PhD in Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology - Department of Molecular Medicine - University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy and Stefan Mundlos Lab - Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany
MSc in Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

BSc in Biotechnology - University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

Guimei Jiang, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Guimei.Jiang@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:
PhD: Joint training of State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, study in Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
MSc in Preventive Immunology , Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China
BSc in Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China

Oscar Pundel, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Oscar.Pundelg@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:
PhD student, John Connelly Lab, Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London UK
Research Technician, Laboratoire National de Santé, Dudelange, Luxembourg
M.Sc. Biological and Molecular Chemistry, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
B.Sc. Chemistry, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Ariel Kuan, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Ariel.Kuan@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:
Postdoctoral Associate – Biology, New York University, New York, NY
Postdoctoral Scholar – Molecular, Cell & Systems Biology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA
PhD in Microbiology – University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA
MSc in Plant Pathology & Microbiology – National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
BSc in Plant Pathology & Microbiology, BSc in Entomology (double major) – National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Catherine Do, PhD

Associate Research Scientist

Catherine.do2@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:
Assistant scientist member : Ben Tycko lab, Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discovery and Innovation, Nutley, New Jersey
Postdoctoral Fellow: Ben Tycko lab, Irving Cancer Research Center, Columbia university, New York, New York
Pharmaco-epidemiologist: French drug agency, Saint-Denis, France
Doctor of medicine (public health): Hospitals of Toulouse, France
PhD in molecular pharmacology: Catherine Seva lab, University of Toulouse, France

Yan Mo, PhD

Assistant Research Scientist

Yan.Mo@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:
Postdoctoral Research Scientist: Zhiguo Zhang lab, Irving Cancer Research Center, Columbia University, New York
PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology Research Lab, Institute of Biomedical Science, Fudan University Fudan University, Shanghai, China
B.S. in School of Life Science, Lanzhou UniversityLanzhou, China

Nata Kakabadze, MSc

Assistant Research Scientist

Nata.kakabadze@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:
M.Sc. in Medical Neurosciences, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany
M.Sc. in Neurosciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
University research assistant, Institute of Cognitive Neurosciences of Free University of Tbilisi, Georgia
Medical laboratory assistant, Oncology Research Center Tbilisi, Georgia
B.Sc. in Biology, Agricultural University of Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia

Alumni

Aram Modrek, MD, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Aram.Modrek@nyulangone.org

Current Position: Aram Lab at USC

Past Positions:
Placantonakis Laboratory, NYU, (Thesis laboratory)
Wen-Hwa Lee Laboratory, UC Irvine, (Undergraduate Research Assistant)
PhD., Molecular Oncology & Tumor Immunology, New York University Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, 2013 – 2017
MD, New York University, Grossman School of Medicine, 2011 – 2018
BS, Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Irvine, 2007 – 2011

Raphael Silveira Vidal, PhD

Associate Research Scientist

raphael.silveiravidal@nyulangone.org

Past Positions:
Postdoctoral Fellow: Martin Eilers' Lab, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Vivian M. Rumjanek's Lab, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Paul Workman’s Lab, The Institute of Cancer Research/ University of London, London, United Kingdom

Anupama Verma

Research Technician

Anupama.Verma@nyulangone.org

B.S. in Life Sciences C.S.J.M University, Kanpur, India

Nishana Mayilaadumveettil, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow
Nishana.Mayilaadumveettil@nyumc.org

Past Positions:
PhD: Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

MSc in Microbiology: Kannur Univerity Campus, Palayad, Kerala, India

BSc in Microbiology: Sree Narayana College, Kannur, Kerala, India

Priscillia Lhoumaud, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Past Position:
PhD student, Olivier Cuvier's lab, University of Toulouse, France.2010-2014

Fara Faye D. Regis , DVM

Associate Research Scientist

Past Positions:
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine : University of the Philippines
Research Technologist : National Cancer Center Singapore
Research Technician : Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Roxanne Debaugny, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Past Positions:
PhD microbiology: Laboratoire de Microbiologie et Génétique Moléculaires. University of Toulouse III. Toulouse, France

M.S. microbiology: University of Toulouse III. Toulouse, France

B.A. Biology & Political Science: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Javier Rodriguez Hernaez

Data Analyst

Past Positions:
BSc in Biotechnology, UADE University, Buenos Aires, Argentina

AS in Chemistry and Biotechnology (Molecular Genomics), ORT Institute of Technology, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sana Bendaoud Badri

PhD Student, Biomedical Informatics Program

B.S. New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) (2009-2013)

Veronica Uribe-Echevarria, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Past Positions:
PhD: Department of Cell Biology and Histology, University of the Basque Country.
MSc in Biomedical Research, University of the Basque Country.
BSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain.

Anil Vittal Kanthi

Data Analyst

Past Positions:
Scientist II: Clinical Genomics, Strand Life Sciences, Bangalore, India (2017 - 2019)
Bioinformatician: NIH Project, Department of Medical Genetics, KMC, Manipal, India (2016 - 2017)
M.Sc. Bioinformatics: School of Life Sciences, Manipal University, India (2013 - 2015)

Ali Ranjbaran

Research Data Associate

BSc in Immunology and Medical Microbiology, West Virginia University. 2015-2019.

Caryn Ha

Assistant Research Technician

Past Positions:
BA in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, Rutgers University - New Brunswick

Ester Marina Zárate

Visiting Student

MSc in Molecular Biomedicine, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain.
BSc in Biotechnology, University of Salamanca, Spain.

Jason Wong

PhD Student, Molecular Oncology and Tumor Immunology Program (2013 – present)

B.S. from The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) (2008-2011)

Past Positions:
Lab Manager at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory – Lippman Lab (2012-2013)

Erica Chio

Undergraduate Student

New York University

Nikolaos Vosnakis, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Past Positions:
PhD-Postdoctoral Fellow: Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC), Strasbourg, France

MSc in Molecular Genetics - Department of Genetics University of Leicester, UK

Paul Vrana, PhD

Research Associate Scientist/Lab Manager

Past Positions:
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biological Chemistry, University of California, Irvine.

2009 – 2015 Research Associate Professor, Dept. Biological Sciences & Peromyscus Genetic Stock Center, University of South Carolina
2016 – 2017 Scientist, Zymo Research Corp, Irvine, CA