Inaba Lab

Mayu Inaba

Principal Investigator

Email:moguro@uchc.edu

I am fascinated by the effects and consequences of the different scale of the "time" in biology: for example, how cellular composition shifts over an animal’s lifetime and how genes and gene expression evolve to enable adaptation to changing environments over millions of years. Our research focuses on to answer these questions by using Drosophila gonads.

Emma Kristine Beard

Graduate Student

Email: beard@uchc.edu

Emma’s project examines the stage-specific expression and localization of retrotransposon RNA in spermatocytes. Specific focuses include how expression of these transposons is regulated and the effect of retrotransposon RNA on nuclear architecture and gene expression.

Sophia Bizink

Graduate Student

Email: bizink@uchc.edu

Sophia's project is to identify the mechanism how BMP signal from soma to germline regulates mitochondria morphology in spermatocytes.

McKenna Elise Rook

Rotation Student

Mckenna is investigating unconventional regulation of mRNA during asymmetric stem cell division and differentiation.

Saagar Patel

Undergraduate Student

Email:saagar.patel@uconn.edu

Saagar's project focuses on the change in the structure of stem cell specific gene loci in various contexts.

Jeffrey Gamer

Research Assistant (Bioinformatics)

Email: gamer@uchc.edu

Jeff is looking for how transposon insertions are diverged in Drosophila melanogaster and closely related species.

Jaime Han

Highschool Student

Jaime is investigating how somatic cyst stem cells support the dedifferentiation of spermatogonia.

Shriya Rai Chennavajhula

Highschool Student

Shriya’s project focuses on mechanisms of sperm quality control in Drosophila.

Nuala N. Peterman

Rotation Student (2026 Spring)

Nuala investigated the mechanism of physical recruitment of chromatin loci to transcriptionally active nuclear microenvironment.

Stella DiPippo (2025 May-2026 May)

Research Assistant

Stella made a huge progress on the mechanisms of dedifferentiation using RNAi screening and experimental GSC depletion to identify genes involved in their recovery. 

Vedansh Patel (2024~2026)

UConn undergraduate student (HRP, SURF, Honors program)

Vedansh investigated the roles of histone modification and turnover in cell-fate transition and tumorigenesis.

Samaneh Poursaeid

Postdoctoral Researcher (2022~2026)

Email: poursaeid@uchc.edu

Samaneh’s research focused on how niche signals can differently impact cells located inside and outside of the niche.

Current position: Ivo Kalajzic's Lab @ Department of Regenerative Medicine & Skeletal Development, UConn Health.

Gina Airoldi

Rotation Student

Email:gairoldi@uchc.edu

Gina is a rotation student for 2025 fall. Gina's project focused on the size change in chromosome 2L teritory during germline development.