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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
​                                                2021 K99/R00 NIEHS

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. 54: 24-46. *Equal contribution

Bonilla, B., Brown, A.J., Hengel, S.R., Rapchak, K.S., Mitchell, D., Pressimone, C.A., Fagunloye, A.A., Luong, T.T., Russell, R.A., Vyas, R.K., Mertz, T.M., Zaher, H.S., Mosammaparast, N., Malc, E.P., Mieczkowski, P.A., Roberts, S.A.*, Bernstein, K.A.* (2021) The Shu complex prevents mutagenesis and cytotoxicity of single-strand specific alkylation lesions, eLife. 10:e68080. *Co-corresponding


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Kristie Darrah, Ph.D.

Post-Doctorate Fellow
September 20 2021- current

B.S. Bloomsburg University, 2014
Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2021 (Advisor Alex Deiters)

Lab Publications:

Prakash, R.#.*, Rawal, Y.#, Sullivan, M.R.#, Grundy, M.K., Bret, H., Mihalevic, M.J., Rein, H.L., Baird, J.M., Darrah, K., Zhang, F., Wang, R., Traina, T.A., Radke, M.R., Kaufmann, S.H., Swisher, E.M., Guerois, R., Modesti, M., Sung, P., Jasin, M.*, Bernstein, K.A.* (2022) Homologous recombination-deficient mutation cluster in tumor suppressor RAD51C identified by comprehensive analysis of cancer variants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In press #Equal contribution, *Co-corresponding

Ph.D. Students
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Hayley Rein

Graduate Student
March 25, 2019 - current

B.S. University of South Florida, 2018

Funding: 2022 F31 NIH Predoctoral Research Fellowship (CA264889)

Lab Publications:

Prakash, R.#.*, Rawal, Y.#, Sullivan, M.R.#, Grundy, M.K., Bret, H., Mihalevic, M.J., Rein, H.L., Baird, J.M., Darrah, K., Zhang, F., Wang, R., Traina, T.A., Radke, M.R., Kaufmann, S.H., Swisher, E.M., Guerois, R., Modesti, M., Sung, P., Jasin, M.*, Bernstein, K.A.* (2022) Homologous recombination-deficient mutation cluster in tumor suppressor RAD51C identified by comprehensive analysis of cancer variants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In press #Equal contribution, *Co-corresponding

Rein, H.L., Bernstein, K.A., Baldock, R. (2021) RAD51 paralog function in replicative DNA damage and tolerance, Current Opinions in Genes & Development. 71: 86-91.

Prakash, R., Sandoval, T., Morati, F., Zagelbaum, J.A., Lim, P.X., Taylor, B., Wang, R., Desclos, E.C.B., Sullivan, M.R., Rein, H.L., Bernstein, K.A., Krawczyk, P.M., Gautier, J., Modesti, M., Vanoli, F., Jasin, M. (2021) Distinct pathways homologous recombination controlled by the SWS1-SWSAP1-SPIDR complex, Nature Communications. 12(1): 4255. 



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Mohd Azrin Jamalruddin

Graduate Student
July 1, 2019 - current

B.S. Michigan State University

Lab Publications:
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Bai, S., Taylor, S.E., Jamalruddin, M.A., McGonigal, S., Grimley, E., Yang, D., Bernstein, K.A., Buchanovich, R.J. (2022) Targeting therapeutic resistance and multinucleate giant cells in CCNE1-amplified HR-proficient ovarian cancer. Molecular Cancer Therapy. 21(9): 1743-1484.

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.

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Adeola Fagunloye

Graduate Student
June 1, 2021 - current

B.S. Igbinedion University, Okada, 2015
M.S. University of the District of Columbia, 2020

Lab Publications:

Bonilla, B., Brown, A.J., Hengel, S.R., Rapchak, K.S., Mitchell, D., Pressimone, C.A., Fagunloye, A.A., Luong, T.T., Russell, R.A., Vyas, R.K., Mertz, T.M., Zaher, H.S., Mosammaparast, N., Malc, E.P., Mieczkowski, P.A., Roberts, S.A.*, and Bernstein, K.A.* (2021) The Shu complex prevents mutagenesis and cytotoxicity of single-strand specific alkylation lesions. eLife. 10:e68080. *Co-corresponding

Technicians

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Phoebe Parker

Research Technician
July 1, 2022 - current

B.S. University of Pittsburgh, 2022

Lab Publications:

Luong, T.T., Li, Z., Priedigkeit, N., Parker, P.S., Böhm, S., Rapchak, K., Lee, A.V., Bernstein, K.A. (2022) Hrq1/RECQL4 regulation is critical for preventing aberrant recombination during DNA intrastrand crosslink repair and is upregulated in breast cancer. PLoS Genetics, 18(9): e1010122.

 Undergraduate Researchers
Isabela Contreras

Undergraduate Researcher
October 3, 2023 - current

University of Pennsylvania

Funding/Fellowships: 2023 Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society Undergraduate Scholarship
                                 2023 Basser Summer Scholars Program

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

Former Trainees
Graduate Students
2012-2015
Stephen Godin
Current Position: 
Senior Scientist I at Tango
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
2017-2022
Thong Luong
Current Position:
Post-doctoral Research Fellow with NCI
Post-doctorate
2012-2013
Cheryl (Clauson) Kozina
Current Position:  
Associate Professor (with tenure) at St. Leo University, FL
2012-2015
Stefanie Bohm
Current Position: 
Editor at EMBO Journal
2015-2018
Julieta Martino
Current Position:
Variant Scientist, GeneDx
2016-2018
Robert Baldock
Current Position:
Senior Lecturer of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, England
Medical Students
2012-2015
Yoav Karpenshif
Current Position: 

Advanced Fellow in Critical Care, University of Pennsylvania
2013-2015

​Zhuying Zhang (Rebecca)
Current Position:
​M.D.
2015-2017
Anton Khodakov
Current Position:
Corporate Strategy Consultant, Humana
Undergraduate Students
2011-2013
Dominique Bratton-Palmer
Current Position: 
Business Analyst Myers-Holum
​2011-2013
Christina Hornack
Current Position:
Emergency Medicine Physician at OVP Health, Chillicothe, OH
2011-2015
Faiz Kabbinavar
Current Position:
M.D. Family Medicine
2012
​Cynthia Thomas
Current Position:
Laboratory Technician at the Citizen Science Lab, Pittsburgh, PA
​2012-2013​
​Robert Caro​
Current Position:
​Associate Dentist at Kaye Dentistry, NY, NY​
​2013-2014
​Morgan (Casal) Butrovich
Current Position:
PhD candidate Clinical Pharmaceutical Sciences
2013-2014
​​Shahm Raslan
Current Position:
Medical Student at Florida International University
2013-2014 
Alison Lee
Current Position:
Ph.D. Student at University of Texas Austin
​2014-2015
Jared Baird
Current Position:
Anesthesiology Resident at Wake Forest
2015-2018
Catherine Pressimone
Current Position:
Medical Student at University of Pittsburgh
2016
Gannon Rooney
Current Position:
Medical Student at University of Pittsburgh
2017-2020
Chelsea Smith
Current Position:
Graduate Student University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2019-2021
Ella Roberts
Current Position:
Patient Care Technician at Children's Hospital
2020-2022
Katherine Oppenheimer
Current Position:
Undergraduate Researcher at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center
2021-2022
Reagan Russel 
Current Position:
Undergraduate Researcher for Dr. Andrea Berman, University of Pittsburgh 
2021-2022
Phoebe Parker
Current Position:
Laboratory Technician at the University of Pennsylvania
2022
Megan Pauly 
Current Position:
Clinical Research Associate at Labcorp
Technicians
2011-2018
Michael Mihalevic
Current Position: 
R.N.
2015-2017
Benjamin Herken
Current Position:
Ph.D. Student at University California San Francisco TETRAD Program
2016-2019
Gregory Brunette
​Current Position:
Ph.D. Student at Harvard University in Bioinformatics
2018-2020
McKenzie Grundy
Current Position:
Ph.D. Student at UNC Chapel Hill
High School Students
2012
Leah Furman
Current Position:
Ph.D. Student at Wiezmann Institute of Science, Jerusalem, Israel
2013
Kyle Yoshida
Current Position:
Ph.D. Student in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University
​2014, 2016
​Yael Colton
Current Position:
FSO Assurance Staff at EY, New York, NY
​2016
​Brian Kang
Current Position:
Director at Make Ventures Princeton, Atlanta, GA
​2016-2017
​Ashani Shah
Current Position:
Undergraduate Student- B.Sc/M.D. Program at Rutgers University, NJ
2017
Zehra Mehdi
​Current Position:
N.A.
​2019
Charles Burton
​Current Position:
Undergraduate Student at University of Virginia

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