Members

Current members

Chew Chai

Graduate Student (joined @ 03/2018)
Bioengineering
Stanford Graduate Fellow (SGF)
NSF GRFP Fellow
DARE Doctoral Fellow | ARCS Scholar | Siebel Scholar

B.S. in Chemistry, MIT
chewc@stanford.edu

Eunsun Song

Graduate Student (joined @ 11/2020)
Applied Physics
Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow (SIGF)

B.S. in Physics, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea
songes94@stanford.edu

Lauren Lubeck

Graduate Student (joined @ 11/2022)
Biology
joint with Chris Lowe

B.S. in Biology, Brown University
llubeck@stanford.edu

Abhimanyu Sharma

Graduate Student (joined @ 04/2024)
Bioengineering

B.S./M.S. in Physics, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali
absharma@stanford.edu

Souradeep Sarkar

Postdoc (joined @ 07/2022)
School of Medicine Dean's Postdoctoral Fellow

Ph.D. in Developmental Biology, National Centre for Biological Sciences, India
sarkar91@stanford.edu

Guang Yang

Postdoc (joined @ 09/2024)

Ph.D. in Biology, Tongji University, China
gyangbio@stanford.edu

Bo Wang

Assistant Professor
Department of Bioengineering

Office: Shriram 084
wangbo@stanford.edu
(Don't click)

Former members

Alexander J. Tarashansky (current position)
PhD of Bioengineering, 02/2016-06/2021

Samuel R. Bray (current position)
PhD of Bioengineering, 06/2017-12/2022

R. Nelson Hall (current position)
PhD of Bioengineering, 06/2017-05/2024

Robin Rio Bigasin, Research associate (09/2021-10/2023). Robin performed a RNAi screen to identify regulators of Macrostomum regeneration.

Colin Kalicki, Coterm student (01/2021-08/2023). Colin worked to identify unannotated noncoding transcriptional active regions in the planarian genome using single-cell RNAseq data. His interests in bioinformatics continues as a Ph.D. student in Systems Biology at Columbia University.

Xi Yu, MS student (10/2018-05/2020). Xi worked on a RNAi screen to identify regulators of germline development in schistosomes. Her next station is Mayo Clinic, to pursue her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and Physiology.

Huiying Yang, Research associate (01/2016-07/2016). Huiying set up the lab routine of our schistosome work, and got our first set of experiments up and running. She is currently a pharmacologist and clinical researcher at Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, China.

Rotations

Hunter King, Developmental Biology (01/2024-03/2024). Hunter explored ChromBPNet models for cross-species genome accessibility predictions. Thesis lab: Kyle Loh.

Yilin Chen, Bioengineering (09/2023-12/2023). Yilin tested large language models for single-cell transcriptomic analysis. Thesis lab: Possu Huang.

Yixin Wang, Bioengineering (09/2022-12/2022). Yixin worked to integrate transformer language models into cross-species cell type mapping. Thesis lab: Kilian Pohl.

Maya Sheth, Bioengineering (06/2022-09/2022). Maya studied the function of distal wound responses in the planarian regeneration. Thesis lab: Polly Fordyce.

Macy Vollbrecht, Biology (04/2022-06/2022). Macy used SAMap to compare chicken and human heart cell types. Thesis lab: Dominique Bergmann.

Junqin Zhu, Biology (01/2021-04/2021). Jun analyzed the stem cell populations in the acoel worm, Convolutriloba longifissura.

Sophie Walton, Biophysics (01/2021-03/2021). Sophie worked on mRNA transfection of planarian cells. Thesis lab: Dmitri Petrov.

Soham Sinha, Bioengineering (01/2021-03/2021). Soham built an instrument, 'worm cannon', to cut and collect planarian tissues with microscale precision. Thesis lab: Mark Skylar-Scott.

Jordan Xiao, Biophysics (09/2019-12/2019). Jordan worked on implementing single-cell ATACseq on schistosome cells in order to understand wound induced chromatin remodeling. Thesis lab: Jan Skotheim.

Jiawei Sun, Bioengineering (09/2019-12/2019). Jiawei's work aimed to develop an unsupervised algorithm for transcriptomic cell type atlas analysis. Thesis lab: KC Huang.

Sasha Zemsky, Biophysics (01/2018-03/2018). Sasha combined experiments and theory to understand the control mechanisms of cellular homeostatic dynamics in planarians. Thesis lab: Zev Bryant.

Ellie Flaum, Biophysics (01/2018-03/2018). Ellie explored super-resolution imaging methods to characterize nuclear architecture in planarians. Thesis lab: Manu Prakash.

Pam Rios Coronado, Biology (09/2017-12/2017). Pam characterized gene expression patterns in the schistosome germline. Thesis lab: Kristy Red-Horse.

Pranav Vyas, Bioengineering (09/2017-12/2017). Pranav's work with us focused on the remodeling of planarian gut during growth and degrowth. Thesis lab: Manu Prakash.

Paul Bump, Biology (10/2016-03/2017). Paul's work was to purify the planarian immune cells. Thesis lab: Chris Lowe.

Trisha Chong, Developmental Biology (09/2016-12/2016). Using functional genomic analysis, Trisha compared the molecular wound responses between regenerative and non-regenerative flatworms. Thesis lab: Lucy Shapiro.

Yuan (Soso) Xue, Bioengineering (09/2015-03/2016). As the first student, Soso declared open the lab at the 2016 Shriram new lab welcome party. During his time with us, he searched for a "first principle project" that defines life by experimenting many different things on the planarian. Thesis lab: Steve Quake.

Undergrads

Robert Igbokwe (BioE REU, 2023). Robert worked with Livia on quantifying planarian behaviors.

Catherine Rogers (BioE REU, 2019). Cat worked with Dania on the planarian goblet cells.

Eric Liu (BioE REU, 2018). Eric worked with Nelson on transgene expression in planarian cells, through the BIOE REU program.

Xóchitl Longstaff (Bio-X USRP, 2018). Xóchitl worked on several projects from schistosomes to auxotrophic bacterial communities, and co-authored a paper (Adv Healthc Mater, 2018).

Eva Frankel (BioE REU, 2017). Eva worked with Margarita to characterize gene functions in the planarian immune-like cells.

Taylor Chavez (BioE REU, 2017). Taylor worked with Youngbin to characterize the phototaxis of planarians.

Visitors

Shinji Tashiro, Visiting scholar (09/2023-08/2024). Shinji spent a year with us on sabbatical from the SONY Corporation. He focused on implementing spatial transcriptomics on several types of animal tissues, from octopus hearts to mouse intestines.

Jiaxin (Bonnie) Nien, High school intern (06/2024-08/2024). Bonnie worked with Pengyang on a photosymbiotic acoel to manipulate its relationship with the algal symbiont.

Britney Ho, Undergrad (06/2024-08/2024). Britney joined us through the Community College Outreach Program. She worked with Souradeep to characterize the diversity in the nervous system of various planarian species.

Ruohan Ren, Undergrad (06/2023-08/2023). Ruohan joined us from Tsinghua University, China, through the UGVR program. He analyzed the single-cell ATACseq data from three flatworms to explore the genetic basis of cell type identity. He continued his interests in computational biology as a graduate student in a tri-institutional program hosted by Cornell, Memorial Sloan Kettering, & Rockefeller University.

Zachary Irwin, High school intern (06/2023-09/2023). Zachary worked with Livia to explore learning behavior of Macrostoma lignano. He went on to study biomedical engineering at UC Irvine.

Pranav Kalakuntla, High school intern (06/2023-08/2023). Pranav worked with Souradeep on perturbing the Wnt signaling pathway in the planarian.

Jacob Qian, High school intern (07/2022-08/2022). Jacob worked with Sam to build an imaging setup to quantify phototaxis of the planarian. He went on to study at UPenn.

Lihan Zhong, Undergrad (06/2022-08/2022). Through the UGVR program, Lihan joined us from Tsinghua University, China. He developed a FACS protocol to isolate cytotoxic cells from planarians. He continued his passion for research as a graduate student at Rockefeller University.

Francesca Prescott, High school intern (02/2022-04/2022). As a part of her Biotechnology Research Capstone course, Francesca worked with Livia to learn about RNAi techniques through gene knockdowns in planarians. She went on to study at Washington University in St. Louis.

Shulin Mao, Undergrad (07/2021-08/2021). Shulin joined us virtually from Peking University, China, through the UGVR program and worked on the analysis of single-cell ATAC data we collected on schistosomes. He went on for graduate school at Harvard University.

Zikang Huang, Undergrad (07/2020-08/2020). Zikang visited us virtually from Tsinghua University, China, through the UGVR program. He helped with the annotation of the Convolutrilba transcriptome. He moved on as a graduate student at UPenn.

Songbo Zhang, Undergrad (07/2019-08/2019). Through the Stanford Undergraduate Visiting Research (UGVR) program, Songbo visited us from Tsinghua University, China. He worked with Yuhang on spatial coordination of planarian regeneration. Songbo continued on as a graduate student at Tsinghua University.

Maria Lozada, Undergrad (06/2019-08/2019). Through the Stanford Summer Research Program (SSRP), Maria joined us from the University of Miami. She worked with Sam and Livia to collect our first dataset on planarian behaviors during the brain regeneration.

Žaneta Andrusivová, Collaborator (07/2019). Žaneta visited us from Professor Joakim Lundeberg's lab at KTH, Sweden. She worked with Yuhang to implement Spatial Transcriptomics on planarian tissues.

Karamjot Singh, High school intern (06/2019-08/2019). Supported by the Stanford RISE summer internship, Karm worked with Chew to measure the allogeneic response of planarian cells.

Hannah Lee, High school intern (07/2018-08/2018). Hannah worked with Alec to analyze the planarian and schistosome genome. She continued the work as her AP research project. Hannah later pursued her undergraduate studies at UCLA and returned to Stanford for her MD training!

Christopher He, High school intern (02/2018-05/2018). As his senior project, Chris worked with Chew to cut and paste planarians to make genetic chimeras. He continued his passion in biology at UCLA and then moved to UCSF to pursue a PhD degree in developmental and stem cell biology.

Stella Wan, High school intern (06/2017-07/2017). As a passionate bridge player, Stella worked with Sam to explore the ideas of engineer the planarian gut microbiome as an ecosystem. In inducing nonlinear growth behaviors in strongly coupled species networks, tricks in bridge are certainly helpful! Stella then studied Chemistry at UC Berkeley.

Anna Tarashansky, High school intern (06/2016-08/2016). Never pipetted before, Annie joined us to find out if she enjoys biology, and left with a definitive answer. Her work with Soso has initiated our new project that uses the planarian to understand the evolution of microbial communities. Anna continued her education at UC Berkeley in Physiology.

Aaron Benge, Undergrad (06/2016-08/2016). Aaron joined us from Georgetown College, Kentucky, through a HHMI summer research program. He teamed with Margarita and they two got our first set of super-resolution fluorescence images of the planarian using expansion microscopy.

Angela Fan, High school intern (06/2016-07/2016). Angela spent her summer working with Pengyang on germline development in juvenile schistosomes. This was her first exposure to molecular biology. In the meantime, Angela is also an active ice skater and dancer. Angela went on to study chemistry and biochemistry at UC Berkeley and moved to UCSD to pursue her PhD.

Current members

Chew Chai

Jesse Gibson

Eunsun Song

Prateek Kalakuntla

Lauren Lubeck

Sidney Vermeulen