Members

Current Members Former Members

Current members

Richard Nelson Hall

Graduate Student (joined @ 06/2017)
Bioengineering
NSF GRFP Fellow
joint with Andy Fire

B.S. in Biological Engineering, MIT
rnhall@stanford.edu

Dania Nanes Sarfati

Graduate Student (joined @ 05/2018)
Biology
Bio-X Bowes Graduate Student Fellowship

B.S. in Biology, National Autonomous University of Mexico
danians@stanford.edu

Livia Wyss

Graduate Student (joined @ 05/2019)
Biology
NSF GRFP Fellow
NIH Cell and Molecular Biology Training Program

B.S. in Neuroscience, Trinity College
lwyss@stanford.edu

Prateek Kalakuntla

Graduate Student (joined @ 07/2022)
Developmental Biology
Stanford Graduate Fellow (SGF)
NSF GRFP Fellow

B.S. in Bioengineering & Computer Science, MIT
prateekk@stanford.edu

Sidney Vermeulen

Graduate Student (joined @ 06/2023)
Genetics

B.S. in Biological Engineering & Computer Science, MIT
M.E. in Computer Science, MIT
sidneyv@stanford.edu

Abegail Bigasin

Life science research professional (joined @ 09/2021)

B.S. in Biology, UCSD
abigasin@stanford.edu

Shinji Tashiro

Visiting Scholar (joined @ 09/2023)

B.E. & M.E. in Mechanical Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan

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

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

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

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

Macy Vollbrecht, Biology (04/2022-06/2022). Macy used SAMap to compare chicken and human heart cell types. She went on to join Dominique Bergmann's lab.

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. She joined Dmitri Petrov's lab to study microbial evolution.

Soham Sinha, Bioengineering (01/2021-03/2021). Soham built an instrument, 'worm cannon', to cut and collect planarian tissues with microscale precision. He joined Mark Skylar-Scott's lab to pursue his PhD on 3D printing techniques.

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. Jordan joined Jan Skotheim's lab to study cell cycle control in yeast.

Jiawei Sun, Bioengineering (09/2019-12/2019). Jiawei's work aimed to develop an unsupervised algorithm for transcriptomic cell type atlas analysis. He went on to work with KC Huang for his PhD.

Sasha Zemsky, Biophysics (01/2018-03/2018). Sasha combined experiments and theory to understand the control mechanisms of cellular homeostatic dynamics in planarians. Sasha joined Zev Bryant's lab for her thesis research.

Ellie Flaum, Biophysics (01/2018-03/2018). Ellie explored super-resolution imaging methods to characterize nuclear architecture in planarians. She went on to join Manu Prakash's lab.

Pam Rios Coronado, Biology (09/2017-12/2017). Pam characterized gene expression patterns in the schistosome germline. She joined Kristy Red-Horse's lab to work on heart development.

Pranav Vyas, Bioengineering (09/2017-12/2017). Pranav's work with us focused on the remodeling of planarian gut during growth and degrowth. Pranav went on to join Manu Prakash working on a variety of marine organisms.

Paul Bump, Biology (10/2016-03/2017). Paul's work was to purify the planarian immune cells. Paul went on rotating with Irv Weissman to work on tunicates, and joined Chris Lowe to work on hemichordates for his PhD.

Trisha Chong, Developmental Biology (09/2016-12/2016). Using functional genomic analysis, Trisha compared the molecular wounding responses between regenerative and non-regenerative flatworms. Trisha went on to join Lucy Shapiro's lab for her thesis research.

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. Soso joined Steve Quake's lab for his thesis research.

Undergrads

Catherine Rogers (06/2019-08/2019). Through the BIOE REU program, Cat worked with Dania on the planarian goblet cells.

Eric Liu (06/2018-08/2018). Eric worked with Nelson on transgene expression in planarian cells, through the BIOE REU program.

Xóchitl Longstaff (10/2017-08/2018). Xóchitl worked on a variety of projects from schistosomes to auxotrophic bacterial communities. Her work was supported by Bio-X USRP, and she co-authored a paper with us (Adv Healthc Mater, 2018).

Eva Frankel (06/2017-12/2017). Through the BIOE REU program, Eva worked with Margarita to characterize gene functions in the planarian immune-like cells. She presented her first poster at the Bioengineering REU poster fair.

Taylor Chavez (01/2017-08/2017). Through the BIOE REU program, Taylor worked with Youngbin to characterize the phototaxis of planarians.

Visitors

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.

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 went on as an undergraduate student at UCLA.

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

Richard Nelson Hall

Chew Chai

Dania Nanes Sarfati

Jesse Gibson

Livia Wyss

Eunsun Song

Prateek Kalakuntla

Lauren Lubeck