San Diego State University - Minds that move the world

Meet the Lab

Roberto Alvarez
Yo yo yo, my name is Roberto Alvarez Jr. I've been working for Dr. Sussman since March of 2005. I chose to move to San Diego so that I may expand my knowledge as a scientist. I am currently working on my Master's Degree and intend to pursue my Ph.D. in the field shortly thereafter. My current project involves the study of a newly created transgenic that expresses fluorescent tags specific to cardiomyocytes, vascular smooth muscle and vascular endothelial cells.

Prior to my move, I was working at Northwestern's Medical School, in Chicago, assisting with the production of transgenic mice as a team member of the Transgenic and Targeted Mutagenesis Facility where I created many transgenics for scientific endeavors at Northwestern. I am now using the skills I acquired while working there to help pursue my own scientific goals. In my spare time, I take pleasure in goofing off, playing xbox with friends, and finding new and clever excuses of why experiments didn't work. My best days at work are when the boss is away. I'm secretly planning to overtake the lab and Dr. Sussman's throne in the very near future, doh...

Daniele Avitabile
I was born in Italy in the city of Rome, where I lived until last year, when I moved to San Diego to join Dr. Sussman's lab for my post-doctoral fellowship. I'm working on two different projects: the first is about the role of two nucleolar proteins (Nucleostemin and Nucleophosmin) and more in general of the nucleolus, in cardioprotection and heart regeneration.The second, is about the generation of a new reporter mouse expressing two different fluorescent fusion proteins (one is red the other green fluorescent), specifically activated at different stages of the cell cycle in the mouse heart. The mouse model will be very useful by making it easy to detect activated cells in the heart following myocardial infarction or other pathological challenges and to study the paracrine effect of exogenus injected stem cells on the resident cardiac populations.

Brandi Bailey
I’ve been a PhD student in Dr. Sussman’s lab since 2006. I work on several different projects involving Cardiac Stem Cells (CSCs). I have found that CSCs isolated from mouse hearts thrive in culture and are very fascinating to manipulate. My first project involves the observation that CSCs isolated from cardiomyocyte-specific transgenic mice will express the transgene that was only supposed to be expressed in functional cardiomyocytes. My second project involves a mouse that has had the Stem Cell Antigen – 1 gene (Sca-1) replaced with GFP. These mice have impaired hearts and impaired stem cells which I believe to be a related phenomenon. The goal of all this stem cell research is to eventually make treatments out of them so you can use your own stem cells as therapy for your heart. Since you would usually not need this treatment until fairly late in life, I am investigating, as my third project, if CSCs isolated from older mice are just as good as those isolated from young adult mice. I enjoy cellular biology and looking at all aspects of cell behavior, and I think that MY cells are the coolest (of course)!
This is a picture of cardiac stem cells isolated from a one year old non-transgenic mouse.
This is a picture of GFP expressing CSCs differentiated on neonatal cardiomyoctyes.

Tao Bo
Tao Bo, received her Masters degree from Nankai University, China. She is working in the Sussman Lab as a research assistant. She focuses on performing surgeries for the whole lab.

Zhaokang Cheng
Zhaokang Cheng, received his Ph.D. from Nankai University, China. He is now a postdoctoral researcher in the Sussman Lab. Zhaokang is interested in the nuclear Akt signaling pathway. The Sussman Lab has proven that the nuclear targeting of Akt can protect the heart from pathological remodeling after a heart attack. Thus, Zhaokang's current task is to dissect the downstream signal transduction system and contribute some clinical implications. His final goal is to promote healthy hearts in humans.

Travis Cottage
I joined the Sussman Lab in 2005 as an undergraduate volunteer where I became an integral part of the lab researching various mechanisms underlying heart disease. After graduation I stayed and received a Masters degree studying the proliferative effects of the Pim-1 kinase on cardiac progenitor cells. That research led me to study chromosomal integrity in progenitor cells and cardiomyocytes. Specifically, how Pim-1 influences telomere length and telomerase activity two very important aspects in cellular homeostasis. Currently, I am seeking a Ph.D., which leaves me with very little spare time, if a Ph.D. is the path you seek, beware.

Shabana Din
I joined the Sussman lab in 2005 as an undergraduate volunteer. After graduating from UCSD with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology, I decided to pursue a M.S. degree in Cell and Molecular Biology in the Sussman Lab. My current research focuses on the effects of Pim-1 on cardiac aging. Global deletion of Pim-1 results in an accumulation of senescent markers within the heart at a relatively young age. Senescent cardiomyocytes do not contribute to the contractile function of the heart and therefore hinder its performance. The goal of my Masters project is to reverse the aging cardiac phenotype by selectively eliminating senescent cardiomyocytes to promote cardiac stem cell regeneration. I will pursue this project further during my Ph.D. I am also the resident fashion consultant as well as the interior decorator for the lab. Some also say that I am the cloning queen...don't mess with me. MSRI 09!!! Holla!

Kimberlee Fischer
I graduated with a B.S. in Microbiology in 2001 from UCSD. Not being sure what I wanted to do after graduation, I took a job at the Scripps Research Institute where I worked on inhibiting HIV infection in macrophages by inhibiting the expression of CCR5, a key cell surface receptor involved in HIV infection. It was there that I decided I liked science so much that I thought I would endure the pain of graduate school, and the Sussman Lab ;). Here, at what we like to call MSRI (Mark Sussman Research Institute), my thesis project focuses on modification of cardiac stem cells with the cardioprotective gene Pim-1. We are trying to improve the therapeutic potential of stem cells through genetic modification, and thus far have been quite successful! I am also currently working on delineating the functions associated with Pim-1 depending on its subcellular localization. In my very minimal free time, I like to go on vacation!!!! Any spare moment is spent looking at what deal I can grab on Travelzoo. And then I daydream about my travels while in my isoflurane induced euphoria!!!!

Natalie Gude
Natalie is the Lab Manager and Lab Histology Director. She has an M.S. in Biology and is currently in her last year of the SDSU-UCSD joint Doctoral program. Natalie's research focuses on the protective effects of Notch in the myocardium and crosstalk of Notch with survival signaling pathways in the heart.

Matt Mason
Mitochondria structural dynamics play a critical role in mitochondrial inheritance during mitosis, bioenergetics and the maintenance of healthy membrane potential. In mammalian cells, fusion and fission of the inner and outer mitochondrial membrane are thought to be effected by pro-fusion (e.g. Opa1, Mfn1/2) or pro-fission (e.g. Drp1, Fis1) proteins. During apoptosis the mitochondrial network fragments and recent evidence suggests that Drp1 dependent fragmentation participates in the apoptotic process and that is inhibition reduces apoptosis. It is possible that fragmented mitochondria morphology plays a critical role in the mitochondrial viability under cellular stress induced by myocardial infarction (MI) and subsequent reperfusion (I/R) in the heart. My project centers on determining the role of the pro-fission protein Drp1 in cellular and mouse models of cardiac injury. Furthermore, activation of Injury Salvage Kinases (RISK) such as Akt and Erk1/2 at the time of reperfusion has repeatedly been shown to confer powerful cardioprotection following I/R injury. The serine/threonine kinase Pim-1 has recently been shown to be a critically effective downstream effector of Akt’s cardioprotective signaling and our lab has demonstrated that activation of Pim-1 in vitro and in mouse models of hypertrophy, infarction, and ischemia/reperfusion injury enhances cardiomyocyte survival through inhibition of intrinsic mitochondrial apoptotic pathways. Such pro-survival kinases may also inhibit the mitochondrial fragmentation during necrotic or apoptotic stress.

Michael McGregor
Newly admitted MCB Master's student.

Education: Bachelor's of Science in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley.

Research Interests: Genetics, stem cell growth and differentiation, tissue engineering, aging... Oh yeah, and the heart is pretty cool too.

Thesis Project Pending: I can neither confirm nor deny what I'm working on now, but I can assure you its down right awesome.

Pearl Quijada
I joined the Sussman Lab in the fall of 2007 after graduating from UCR with my Bachelor’s degree in Biology. I’m currently working on my Master’s project, which utilizes genetically modified bone marrow stem cells (BMCs) and infarcted heart models. This involves over-expression of Pim-1 in BMCs followed by myocardial injection in order to improve cardiac function and enhance regeneration in an injured heart. My research mostly requires characterization of BMCs and echocardiography on live animal models. 

Balaji Sundararaman
I joined Dr. Sussman’s lab in Feb 2009 as a Masters student. Previously, I was working at Dr. Sujatha Narayanan’s lab at the Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai, India on mycobacterial gene regulation. I graduated in Biotechnology from the Government College of Technology, Anna University, Coimbatore in 2006. Here, at the Mark Sussman Research Institute (MSRI), I am working on the Immortal Strand hypothesis. When a stem cell divides, it asymmetrically partitions its genetic material. The daughter-cell-to-become the self-renewing cell will receive the "old" strand, or the "immortal strand", and the daughter-cell-to-become to a differentiated cell will receive a newly synthesized DNA strand. It is proposed that stem cells do this to limit the mutations accumulating during DNA replication in self-renewing stem cells. I am studying to find a correlation between the epigenetic regulation of cell fate determination and immortal strands.

Sylvia Truffa
I'm from Rome, the Italian capital! I moved to San Diego last year. I'm a technician and my role in the Sussman Lab is to generate and grow all the viral vectors that are used for in the Lab's different research areas. More specifically, I'm working on Adenoviral and Lentiviral vectors and learning how to design new vectors.