Caltech Lab
The Caltech lab was founded in 2019.
PhD Students
Hao (Harry) Wang
Harry plans to study the effects of mutations on human blastoids and build an active matter guided cell assembly.
haowang@caltech.edu
Yunzheng (Rachel) Liu
Yunzheng completed her bachelor's degree in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London. She is currently a PhD student in Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics at Caltech. She focuses on studying the multi-omics of post-implantation stem cell-derived embryonic models for both mouse and human.
yliu8@caltech.edu
Yuxuan Li
Yuxuan graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). Fascinated by the world of Stem Cells and Embryo, she is currently studying mouse embryo development and gene expression.
yli8@caltech.edu
Breanna McMahon
Breanna received her bachelor's degree in Cellular & Molecular Biology at Princeton University. She is currently a Biology PhD student at Caltech and is studying the mechanisms of polarization and spacio-temporal development in pre-implantation embryos.
bmcmahon@caltech.edu
Post-doctoral Scientists
Ikbal Choudhury
Ikbal completed his PhD in Mechanobiology at Johns Hopkins University in the lab of Dr. Sean X. Sun. Ikbal is developing a synthetic platform for implantation of embryos in vitro and studying the development of the maternal0fetal interface. This project is funded by the Pioneer NIH grant.
ikbal@caltech.edu
Angela Andersen
Angela obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, and was a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, San Francisco. She was a journal editor at Cell, and co-founded and co-directs Life Science Editors and the Life Science Editors Foundation. Angela is interested in embryo development, particularly how cell identity, communication, and plasticity shape early embryogenesis, and how stem cells self-organize to model development in vitro.
angela.andersen@lifescienceeditors.com
Zhaodi Liao
Zhaodi completed her PhD in Neuroscience at the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is currently focused on developing an artificial placenta system for the post-implantation development of mouse embryos.
zdliao23@caltech.edu
Pallavi Panda
Pallavi completed her PhD in Genetics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in Professor David M Glover’s lab. She is interested in combining her expertise in centriole biology to study the role of centrosomes and cilia in early mammalian brain development using stem cell-based embryo models.
ppanda@caltech.edu
Rachel Mandelbaum
Rachel completed her MD at UCLA and Obstetrics and Gynecology residency at USC. She is currently a Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility fellow at USC. Rachel is interested in the study of human pre- and post implantation embryonic development in efforts to optimize IVF clinical outcomes.
rachel.mandelbaum@med.usc.edu
Paolo Caldarelli
Paolo completed his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He studies the mechanical cues steering the mouse and human morphogenesis during gastrulation. His work is supported by Magda’s Open Filantropy grant.
pcaldare@caltech.edu
Sergi Junyent Espinosa
Sergi completed his PhD in Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at King's College London, under the supervision of Dr. Shukry Habib. He studies how metabolic transitions enable correct embryo progression. His work is funded by Human Frontiers.
sjunyent@caltech.edu
Wenqi Hu
Wenqi earned his PhD from Tsinghua University in China. He joined Magda's lab at Caltech in January 2023, where he is currently working on a project to obtain functional germ cells from synthetic embryos. Additionally, Wenqi is analyzing single cell sequencing data from human and mouse samples to better understand the genetic basis of reproductive processes.
wenqihu@caltech.edu
Laura Amaya Hernandez
Laura completed her PhD in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University under the mentorship of Dr. Howard Chang. She is currently focused on understanding the mechanisms of aneuploid mosaicism elimination during post-implantation development. Additionally, she is interested in studying the mechanisms of cell communication between the uterus and embryo leading to successful implantation.
lamaya@caltech.edu
Ninadini Sharma
Ninadini did her PhD in the lab of Melina Schuh at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen. She used high-resolution microscopy tools to uncover the DNA repair mechanisms underlying the loss of egg quality and quantity with advancing maternal age. She is currently investigating the development of germ cell niches in early embryo and embryo models.
ninadini@caltech.edu
Sergio de la Rosa Garcia
Sergio obtained his PhD in Molecular Biomedicine at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center. His research aims to uncover the source of proteome asymmetries in the early embryo and how they affect lineage segregation. He is also interested in studying the mechanism of cell competition for eliminating aneuploid cells during development.
delarosa@caltech.edu
Dong-Yuan Chen
Dong-Yuan received his Ph.D from UC Berkeley, in the lab of David Bilder. He is studying how extra-embryonic tissues shape and pattern the early post-implantation embryo supported by NIH funding.
dycchen@caltech.edu
Orlando Chirikian
Orlando completed his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University California Santa Barbara, under the supervision of Dr. Beth Pruitt. His primary research focus is to better understand the origins of congenital heart disease by studying the many mechanisms that drive heart morphogenesis using stem-cell based embryo models.
ochiriki@caltech.edu
Staff
Miri Choi
Lab Technician
Miri completed her M.S in Animal Science at Chungnam National University, South Korea. She studied the effect of amniotic fluid derived mesenchymal stem cell conditioned medium towards oocytes, focusing on aging and DNA repair during embryo development. Miri is studying stem cell-based embryo modeling and is interested in applications to regenerate age-related defects present within the reproductive system.
mirichoi@caltech.edu
Daisy Tarin
Lab Technician
Daisy is studying implantation by mimicking the blastocyst and endometrium through stem cell derived models: synthetic blastocyst and synthetic implantation platform. Implantation of both models will allow us to observe maternal fetal interactions.
dtarin@caltech.edu
Intern
Antoine Steck
Ecole Normale Superieure Universite Paris-Saclay-B.S. in Biology and Chemistry