Training in Systems Biology

Systems Biology Graduate Program

Our program is designed to train students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the cutting-edge research techniques that comprise the interdisciplinary research of modern cell biology. Students are provided with rigorous cross training in areas of mathematical, physical, and computational sciences and biology. Systems Biology students take courses, attend seminars and work on interdisciplinary research projects to broaden and strengthen their abilities to do quantitative cell biology research.

The Systems Biology area of concentration is based within the Richard D. Berlin Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling (CCAM) at UConn Health.

Bandita Adhikari	Advisor: Reinhard Laubenbacher
Aniruddha Chattaraj	Advisor: Les Loew Education: MS (Chemistry), IIT Bombay, India About: Before joining CCAM, Ani worked on building mathematical models of stochastic gene expression in induced pluripotent stem cells. Ani has been building biophysical models of molecular clustering process of multivalent signaling molecules and how this clustering leads to the formation of biomolecular condensates.
Lauren Marazzi	Advisor: Paola Vera-Licona Education: BA, Connecticut College About: Lauren Marazzi is a 5th year MD/PhD student at UConn Health. Before joining UConn Health, Lauren studied Bioinformatics and worked on projects focused on Notch Pathway signaling and transcriptome analysis in ambystoma mexicanum. Her research focuses on quantitative analysis of chemotherapy resistance reversion and cancer reversion in triple negative breast cancer using mathematical modeling and control theory.
Joseph Masison	Advisor: Pedro Mendes Education: BS Neurobiology and Physiology, BS Computer Science, University of Maryland About: Joseph Masison is a 4th year MD/PhD student at UConn Health. Before joining UConn Health, he studied neuroscience with bioinformatics and computational modeling. His current research focus is on reproducibility in computational studies and quantitative analysis of duodenal iron metabolism using mathematical modeling.
Milda Stanislauskas	Advisor: Yi Wu Education: BA/MA Hunter College About: Before joining the graduate program at UConn Health, Milda worked at a skin disease research center studying Merkel cells, which are mechanoreceptive cells responsible for sensing light touch. Her research interests include how cells sense physical cues from the external environment and convert them into chemical signals, and how these signals affect various cellular processes, and disease pathogenesis.
Thank you to Milda for sharing her humor and drawing skills by adding such great cartoon art around CCAM.

Student	Advisor	Project
Titas Grabauskas	Les Loew	Cluster formation by activated EGF receptors
Daniel Fairchild	Corey Acker

Hasan Baig	Advisor: Pedro Mendes Education: PhD, Technical University, Denmark About: Dr. Hasan Baig is working on the development of COPASI software.
Meagan Cauble	Advisor: Ji Yu
Sherli Koshy-Chenthittayil	Advisor: Pedro Mendes Education: PhD, (Mathematics), Clemson University, South Carolina, USA About: Dr. Sherli Koshy-Chenthittayil is developing models of mixed-species biofilms.
Nizam Ud Din	Advisor: Ji Yu Education: PhD, (Molecular Biochemistry), Hanyang University, Korea About: During PhD, Nizam studied the molecular markers which contribute to the enhanced metastatic ability of triple negative breast cancer. After joining CCAM as a postdoctoral fellow in the Yu lab, he used SH2-domain containing protein probes to study the behavior of molecular condensates on the cell membrane via super-resolution imaging STORM. He also developed a multiplexed immunostaining imaging process which overcomes the limitation of conventional immunofluorescent imaging of maximum five targets due to spectral overlap. Currently he is setting up a fluidic system where this multiplexed immunostaining and imaging process will be fully automated.
Prem Shresta	Advisor: Ji Yu

Shreedula Balakrishnan	Lab: Vera-Licone Project: working on tumor reversion in Leukemia using computational biology.
Grace Curley-Holmes	Lab: Mayer/Machida Project: working on SH2 domain mapping.
Chandrika Dhavala	Lab: Blinov Project: Visualization of rule-based model.
Amy Flis	Lab: Wu
Jennifer Kim	Lab: Mendes Project: Identification of chaos in nonlinear models by using global optimization in COPASI.
Noah Liguori-Bills Google Summer of Code Student	Lab: Blinov Project: The Development of ModelBricks website.
Maria Menoutis HRP Intern	Lab: Loew Project: Rules that govern the assembly of molecular machines.
Alexa Monroe	Lab: Yan
Nathan Schaumburger	Lab: Blinov Project: Model of aging phenotypes.
Devin Kot‐Thompson	Lab: Acker Project: imaging action potentials.
Gavin Till	Lab: Mayer Project: developing mathematical models to explore the role of membrane receptor clustering in regulation of signaling pathways.

Student	School	Mentors
Google Summer of Code Student
Nikita Mahoviya	National Institute of Technology Hamirpur (H.P.), India	Michael Blinov and Ann Cowan

Name	Degree	Year	Advisor	Current Position
Yuezhe Li	PhD	2021	Wu	Research Associate, Metrum
Judy Bloom	PhD	2020	Loew/	Medical and Scientific Associate, Chameleon Communications International
Adam Lafontaine	PhD	2020	Mayer	Research Associate, Metrum
Russel Posner	MD/PhD	2019	Laubenbacher	MD student, UConn Health
Abhijit Deb Roy	PhD	2018	Wu	Postdoc, Johns Hopkins Medicine
Clifford Locke	MD/PhD	2018	Wu	Internal Medicine Resident, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Ahmed Elmokadem	PhD	2017	Yu	Research Scientist, Metrum
Marc Rigatti	MD/PhD	2017	Kafka/Moraru	Emergency Medicine Resident, UConn Health
Olena Marchenko	PhD	2017	Loew/Dodge	Bioinformatics Engineer, Simons Foundation
Sofya Borinskaya	PhD	2015	Loew	Assistant Professor, Saint Elizabeth University, NJ
Ronghua Yang	MD/PhD		Loew/Liang	Internal Medicine Resident, Rutgers Medical School
Erika Hoyos-Ramirez	PhD	2014	Loew	Postdoc, Yale School of Medicine
Akeisha Belgrave	PhD	2013	Wolgemuth	Assistant Professor, Harrisburg University
Eunji Kim	PhD	2013	Yu	Managing Director, Alzheimer’s Consulting & Services
Jonathon Ditlev	PhD	2012	Mayer/Loew	Assistant Professor, University of Toronto
Sherry-Ann Brown	MD/PhD	2012	Loew	Assistant Professor, Medical College of Wisconsin

Richard D. Berlin Center for Cell Analysis & Modeling

Systems Biology Graduate Program

Graduate Students

Rotation Students

Postdoctoral Fellows

UCONN Undergraduate Student Trainees

Visiting Students

Alumni