People
Bree Aldridge
Associate Professor, Molecular Biology and Microbiology, TUSM
Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, TUSE
Postdoctoral Training: Harvard School of Public Health
Ph.D.: MIT, Biological Engineering, 2008
B.S.: University of Arizona, Computer Engineering & Molecular and Cellular Biology, 2002
Research Assistant Professor
Trever Smith, PhD
ORCID | Tufts GSBS
I use a combination of fluorescence microscopy, omics style data, and machine learning to understand how environmental signals influence the essentially of different biochemical pathways in Mtb. Using antibacterials to inhibit specific cellular processes, I am investigating how perturbations to one or more pathways contribute to Mtb cell death across different physiological states.
Postdocs
Eun Seon Chung (Christin Chung), PhD
ORCID | LinkedIn
My work focuses on understanding how M. tuberculosis controls its growth and behavior under different growth conditions and antibiotics.
Kathleen Davis, PhD
I collaborating with members of the Levy CIMAR and Tufts Medical Center to develop a method of in-vitro testing of drug regimens on bacterial pathogen clinical isolates from hospital patients with severe infections. The goal is to design in-vitro testing methodology to help choose more effective regimens for serious infections. My other work includes a multi-institution collaborative effort to identify small molecules that can be used in combination with antibiotics to restore or improve the activity of those antibiotics against community- and hospital-acquired bacterial infections.
Emmanuel Ogbonna, PhD
LinkedIn
I am a joint postdoctoral fellow in the Aldridge Lab at TUSM and the Laboratory for Systems Pharmacology at HMS working with Dr. Peter Sorger. My research is on the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. I had previously studied putative targets for novel TB drugs, including essential cellular proteases. I am currently studying the relationship between granuloma heterogeneity and host immune response – elicited upon tuberculosis infection – using tissue cyclic immunofluorescence or t-CyCIF. CyCIF is used with a wide array of antibody markers to phenotype all the different cell types associated with the granuloma stages, especially their spatial relationships to one another. With these cell-cell associations assessed, it is then possible to understand physiological and immunological outcomes in the TB granuloma microenvironment.
Ditshego Ralefeta, PhD
ORCID
I am very new to the lab, but have started my work to understand how growth heterogeneity is controlled in mycobacteria.
Graduate Students
Talia Greenstein, Immunology PhD Candidate
ORCID | Tufts GSBS
Lesion heterogeneity is the hallmark of tuberculosis and has made it difficult to treat. I am working to help develop experimental-computational approaches to model drug response in different lesions to identify better drug regimens to treat tuberculosis.
William Johnson, Molecular Microbiology, MERGE ID PhD Candidate
Google Scholar | LinkedIn | Tufts GSBS
My current work has two major aims: 1) Understanding how the growth conditions in TB lesions alter the metabolic state of M. tuberculosis and perpetuate anti-TB drug tolerance through high-throughput image analysis; 2) Using multi-omics data and machine-learning to characterize anti-TB drug mechanism of action in disease-relevant growth conditions.
Joshua Whiteley, Biomedical Engineering Masters Student
LinkedIn
I am researching the morphological changes that occur when treating tuberculosis with antibiotics in different growth conditions to better understand drug mechanism of action.
Research Technicians and Associates
Ares Alivisatos
Basira Daqiq
LinkedIn
I am working on DiaMOND (diagonal measurement of n-way drug interactions) based projects to build predictive models of in vivo outcomes using in vitro measurements. The predictions can then be used to better inform effective drug combination to be tested clinically. In my free time I like to read, bike, swim, surf and enjoy other outdoor activities.
Maliwan Kamkaew, MSc
Google Scholar
I completed my MSc in Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering from Mahidol University, Thailand. During that time, I completed a Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology internship at Harvard Medical School where I became interested in live-cell imaging and single-cell analysis. Currently, my research focuses on using live-cell imaging and single-cell analysis to study the adaptation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis under different environments.
Mariana Pereira Moraes
LinkedIn
Mycobacterium tuberculosis has the ability to persist within lesion with different stressors present. These stressors are thought to be responsible for Mtb survival and drug tolerance. We aim to develop in vitro models using lesion-specific stressors to determine how different lesion niches influence Mtb response to specific drug regimens.
Nhi Van
I study how to optimize drug combination therapies for tuberculosis using a combination of molecular and empirical approaches.
Tracy Washington, PhD
LinkedIn
I work with the drug combination team to analyze drug combination data for tuberculosis, with the goal of designing improved therapies.
Alumni
Meriem Bahira, Research Technician
Sheika Belizaire, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Owen Bennion, Research Technician
Christopher Chou, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Murat Cokol, Visiting Scholar
Yonatan Degefu, Research Technician
Aonkon Dey, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Kaydine Edwards, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Iyob Gebremariam, Analyst
Geoffrey Gonzalez, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Shellyhan Gordon, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Alexander Histed, Graduate Student
Sophia Hu, REU Undergraduate Research Assistant
Joey Jabbour, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Jonah Larkins-Ford, Graduate Student
Michelle Logsdon, Graduate Student
Morgan McNellis, Research Technician
Andrew Min, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Amy Moody, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Sesheta Mwanza, Research Technician
Michaela Olson, Research Technician
Julia Parker, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Brandon Phan, PREP Scholar
Christopher Polleys, REU Undergraduate Research Assistant
Kirsta Pullen, Research Technician
Ian Richardson, High School Research Assistant
Kirill Richardson, Graduate Student & Research Technician
Daniel Rubin, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Jullian Willett, Medical Student Research Assisant