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MEMBERS

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Eri Hashino
Ruth C Holton Professor

Eri is an Auditory Neuroscientist with more than 20 years of experience in studying development and regeneration of the inner ear.   She has broad research experience in cellular, molecular, developmental and behavioral neurosciences.              

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Jing Nie
Assistant Research Professor

Jing joined the lab after receiving his PhD in Biology from Indiana University.  He is a developmental biologist with a strong interest in biotechnology.  He has extensive experience in CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology and is currently working on the CHARGE syndrome project. 

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Mahboubeh Jafarkhani
Post-Doc Fellow

Maha joined the lab after obtaining her PhD in chemical engineering from University of Tehran.  She is currently studying the role for mechanical stimulation in organoid development and hair cell differentiation, using novel biomimetic hydrogels.    

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Manikandan Mayakannon
Post-Doc Fellow

Mani joined the lab after 3-years of Post-Doc training at Case Western University. He is currently generating and characterizing human inner ear organoids undergoing inducible hair cell degeneration. He is also involved in a project to identify risk factors for progressive hearing loss.

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Rick Nelson
Associate Professor

Rick is a surgeon-investigator pursuing his independent research in the lab.  His current research is focused on elucidating the mechanisms underlying hair cell degeneration caused by mutations in TMPRSS3, using stem cell technology and genomics.    

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Yoshitomo Ueda
Assistant Research
Professor

Yoshi is a cellular neuroscientist with research experience in perinatal brain development.  His research interests lie in recapitulating neurodevelopmental disorders with human pluripotent stem cells in 3D culture.  He is using a hindbrain organoid system he has established to model CHARGE syndrome. 

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Jeffery Chen
Post-Doc Fellow

Jeffery is a Post-doc fellow in the Nelson group with a PhD degree in Pharmacology/Toxicology from the National Defense Medical Center in Taiwan.  He is currently studying the mechanisms underlying TMPRSS3-mediated hair cell degeneration using both mouse and human organoid model systems. 

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Tsubasa Saeki
Post-Doc Fellow

Tsubasa obtained his PhD in Stem Cell Biology from Keio University School of Medicine in Japan. He is interested in screening and designing  small molecules with the ability to promote hair cell regeneration using inducible human inner ear organoid systems.  

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Matthew Arkenberg
Post-Doc Fellow

Matt recently joined the lab after obtaining his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University. He will embark on a project to develop a novel organoid system using a combination of Stem Cell Biology and Chemical Engineering approaches.

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Shweta Reddy
PhD Student

Shweta is a 3rd-year PhD student in the Medical Neuroscience graduate program.  She is pursuing a project on the development and degeneration of ribbon synapses in human inner ear organoids, using both light- and electron-microscopic approaches. 

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Alex Solivais
Bioinformatician

Alex develops new analytical tools and performs various bioinformatics analyses of multiomics data obtained in the lab.   

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Stephen Moore
Research Associate

Stephen joined the lab after receiving his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Indiana University.  He is currently generating and characterizing human otic progenitor reporter stem cell lines as well as testing several signaling pathways in hair cell differentiation.   

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Ernesto Cabrera
Research Technician

Ernesto recently joined the lab after receiving his Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from Earlham College.  He is the lab manager for Rick Nelson's group and is getting proficient with 3D culture and fluorescence and confocal microscopy.  

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Becca Daye
Undergraduate Research Assistant

Becca is a second-year undergraduate student at IUPUI majoring in Neuroscience. She is working on a hindbrain organoid project.

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John Hoffman
Research Technician

John joined the lab after receiving his Bachelor's degree in Neuroscience from Indiana University. He is working on bioinformatics analyses of scRNA-seq data and getting training on cell culture and imaging techniques.  

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Madeleine Wisler
Undergraduate Research Assistant

Madeleine is a third year undergraduate student at IUPUI majoring in Chemistry. She is working on a project to fabricate and characterize dynamic/tunable hydrogels

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Takashi Nakamura
Visiting Res. Scientist

Takashi is a neurotologist trained in Japan.  He has extensive research experience in molecular/cellular biology, and is currently working on a project to determine a signaling pathway for cochlear lineage specification during inner ear organoid development. 

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Evan Cumpston 
Neurotology Fellow

Coming soon.

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Kevin Booth
Genetics Fellow

Coming soon.

Previous Members

Daniel Romano (MD Student): Resident physician - Otolaryngology-HNS, Washington University

Pei-Ciao Tang (Res. Assistant Professor): Research Scientist, Univ. Miami Medical School

Jade Harkin (Research Associate):  PhD student, IUSM

Emma Longworth-Mills (PhD Student):  Author (https://us.macmillan.com/author/emmamills/)

Alpha Alex (Research Associate): Returned to Northern Ireland

Rachel DeJonge (MS Student)

Sreeparna Mjumdar (PhD Student); Post-Doc Fellow, IUSM

Chris Deig (MD Student): Resident physician - Radiation Medicine, Oregon Health Sciences University

Andrew Mikosz (Research Technician): Scientist, The New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute 

Dharmesh Patel (Post-Doc Fellow): Industry

Alhason Elghouch (MD/MS Student): Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology,  IUSM

Karl Koehler (PhD Student):  Assistant Professor, Boston Children's Hospital/ Harvard Medical School

Alexander Malone (MD Student): Resident physician - Otolaryngology-HNS, University of South Florida

Emily Beans (Research Technician): MD student, IUSM

Akihiro Matsuoka (Research-Track Resident):  Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, Northwestern University

Atsushi Shimomura (Post-Doc Fellow): Professor at Hokkaido Health Sciences University

David Zopf (MD Student): Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology, University of Michigan Medical School

Takako Kondo (Post-Doc Fellow): Professor, Nagoya Woman's University

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