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Principal Investigator

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Kara Bernstein

Lab Head

B.A. Bryn Mawr College, 2000
Ph.D. Yale University, 2006 (Advisor Susan Baserga)
Post-doctorate Fellow, Columbia University, 2006-2011 (Advisor Rodney Rothstein)

Post-doctorate

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 Sarah Hengel, Ph.D.

  Post-Doctorate Fellow
  August 15, 2017 - current


  B.S. College of Saint Scholastica, 2010
  Ph.D. University of Iowa, 2017 (Advisor Maria Spies)

  Funding: 2017 Diversity Supplement from the National Institutes of Health
                                                2019 Post-doctoral Hillman Fellowship for Innovative Cancer Research
                                                2019 American Cancer Society Post-doctoral Research Fellow

Lab Publications:


Rosenbaum JC*, Bonilla B*, Hengel SR*, Mertz TM, Herken BW, Kazemier HG, Pressimone CA, Ratterman TC, MacNary E, De Magis A, Kwon Y, Godin SK, Van Houten B, Normolle DP, Sung P, Das SR, Paeschke K, Roberts SA, VanDemark AP, Bernstein K.A. (2019) The Rad51 paralogs facilitate a novel DNA strand specific damage tolerance pathway, Nature Communications, 10(1): 3515. *Equal contribution

Bonilla, B.*, Hengel, S.R.*, Grundy, M.K., Bernstein, K.A. (2020) RAD51 gene family structure and function, Annual Review of Genetics, In press. *Equal contribution

Ph.D. Students
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Thong Luong

Graduate Student
May 29, 2017 - current

B.S., University of Tennessee, 2011

Lab Publications:

Baldock, R.A., Pressimone, C.A., Baird, J.M., Khodakov, A., Luong, T.T., Grundy, M.C., Smith, C.M., Karpenshif, Y., Bratton-Palmer, D.S., Prakash, R., Jasin, M., Garcin, E.B., Gon, S., Modesti, M., Bernstein, K.A. (2019) RAD51D splice variants and cancer-associated mutations reveal XRCC2 interaction to be critical for homologous recombination, DNA Repair 76: 99-107.

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Hayley Rein

Graduate Student
March 25, 2019 - current

B.S., University of South Florida, 2018



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Mohd Azrin Jamalruddin

Graduate Student
July 1, 2019 - current

B.S., Michigan State University

Lab Publications:
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Brunette, G.J., Jamalruddin, M.A., Baldock, R.A., Clark, N.L., Bernstein, K.A. (2019) Evolution-based screening enables genome-wide prioritization and discovery of DNA repair genes, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(39): 19593-19599.

 Undergraduate Researchers
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Ella Roberts

Undergraduate Researcher
October 5, 2019 - current
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Funding: 2020 Brackenridge Fellowship for Summer Research

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Katherine Oppenheimer

Undergraduate Researcher
January 7, 2020 - current

Funding: 2021 University Honor's College Fellowship

We are always looking for highly motivated undergraduates, rotation students, and post-doctorate fellows!

Technicians

Former Trainees
Graduate Students
2012-2015
Stephen Godin
Current Position: 
Oncology Scientist at Cygnal Therapeutics
2014-2020
Meghan Sullivan
Current Position:
Review Analyst-Variant Scientist at GeneDx
2016-2020
​Braulio Bonilla
Current Position:
Post-doctoral Research Fellow with Dr. Sarah Hainer, University of Pittsburgh
Post-doctorate
2016-2018
Robbie Baldock
Current Position:  
Lecturer in Biochemistry at  Solent University 
2015-2018
Julieta Martino
Current Position: 
Post-doctorate​  
2012-2015
Stefanie Bohm
Current Position:
Editor at EMBO Journal
​2012-2013
​Cheryl (Clauson) Kozina
Current Position:
Associate Professor (with tenure) at St. Leo University
Medical Students
2012-2015
Yoav Karpenshif
Current Position: 

​Internal Medicine Resident at Harvard's Beth Israel Deaconnes Hospital
2013-2015

​Zhuying Zhang (Rebecca)
Current Position:
​Tsinghua Medical Student
2015-2017
Anton Karpenshif
Current Position:
General Surgery Resident U. Louisville
Undergraduate Students
2015-2018
Catherine Pressimone
Current Position: 
Medical Student at University of Pittsburgh
​2016
Gannon Rooney
Current Position:
​Medical Student University of Pittsburgh
2014-2015
​Jared Baird
Current Position:
​Anesthesiology Resident Wake Forrest
2011-2015
​Faiz Kabbinavar​
Current Position:
Medical Student​
​2013-2014​
​Alison Lee​
Current Position:
​Ph.D. Student University of Texas Austin​
​2013-2014
​Morgan Casal
Current Position:
Pitt PharmD Student
2013-2014
​​Shahm Raslan
Current Position:
Medical Student Florida International University
2011-2013
Dominique Bratton-Palmer
Current Position:
Graduate Student at Stanford University
​2011-2013
Christina Hornack
Current Position:
Medical Student at Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine​
2012-2013
Robert Caro
Current Position:
Dental Student at Temple University
2012
Cynthia Thomas
Current Position:
N.A.
2017-2020
Chelsea Smith
Current Position:
Graduate Student University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Technicians
2015-2017
Benjamin Herken
Current Position: 

​Ph.D. Student at University California San Fransisco TETRAD program
2016-2019
Gregory Brunette
Current Position:
Ph.D. Student at Harvard University in Bioinformatics
2018-2020
McKenzie Grundy
​Current Position:
Research Technician University of Pittsburgh
2011-2018
Michael Mihalevic
Current Position:
R.N.
High School Students
2012
Leah (Fuhrman) Javitt
Current Position: 
Masters of Applied Chemistry Student
2013
Kyle Yoshida
Current Position:
PhD Stanford University
2014,2016
Yael Istkowitz
Current Position:
​Accountant
2016
​Brian Kang
​Current Position:
Director at Make Ventures Princeton
​2016, 2017
​Ashani Shah
​Current Position:
M.B.A./M.D. Student Rutgers University
​2017
​Zehra Medhi
​Current Position:
N.A.
​2019
Charles Burton
​Current Position:
University of Virgina

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