Lab People
macara-lab
Savi Buluwana
Undergrad honors student
Savi is working on a genome-wide CRISPR knockout screen for genes required for correct delivery of an apical membrane protein, Crumbs3, to its destination on the apical surface. He is also studying the role of the polarity protein Pals1 in tight junction dynamics and stability.
Miki Daniel
Lab Manager
Miki is studying the apical intercalation of cells into epithelial monolayers, and using mouse models to study mammary gland development.
Christian de Caestecker
CDB graduate student
Christian uses synthetic biology and single molecule approaches to investigate delivery of polarity proteins to the cell membrane
Loic Fort, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Loic is investigating the roles of mechanical forces and signaling in mesoderm specification of human pluripotent stem cells.
Paola Molina, Ph.D.
Paola is determining the mechanism by which Ras-transformed cancer cells are extruded from an epithelial monolayer.
Vaishna Vamadevan, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Vaishna is investigating how signals from dying cells license surviving human pluripotent stem cells to respond to Wnt signaling and commit to the mesoderm lineage. She is using Cut & Run and ATACseq assays to determine the occupancy and accessibility of Wnt-responsive genes in these stem cells.
Aishwarya Venkataravi, PhD, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, CDB
Aishwarya is investigating the mechanism of apical intercalation, in which cells force their way into a pre-existing epithelial monolayer.
Jason Wang
Brentwood High School student
Jason is a high school student in Brentwood. He is now at MIT. He was working on early events triggered by activation of oncogenic Ras.