Principal Investigator
Principal Investigator, Whitman Lab
Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School
Lab Members
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Sampath Vemula, MS, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Vemula earned a Masters of Pharmacology and Toxicology from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), India, in 2011 and a PhD in Biochemistry from Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Germany, in 2018, for which he investigated the role of neuroplastin during early synaptogenesis in hippocampal neurons. At Tufts University School of Medicine in 2018, he studied the role of Wnt/β-catenin in neuronal connectivity using transgenic mouse models. Starting in Dr. Whitman’s lab in December 2020, his research involves oculomotor neuron development and connectivity using a mouse line expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) in motor neurons as well as pathophysiology of eye movement disorders (e.g., strabismus and nystagmus) using transgenic mice.
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Seoyoung (Audrey) Kim, BA Research Assistant Ms. Kim has been a Research Assistant in the Whitman Lab since July 2020. She graduated from Boston University in 2020 with a BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a minor in Psychology. She is currently studying how different receptors affect oculomotor neuron development and characterizing the pathology of nystagmus. She manages the mouse colony and collects, prepares, labels, and images samples. |
Alumni
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Jessica Bell, BS Ms. Bell received her BS in Neuroscience and Biology from Dickinson College in 2018. She originally worked for Dr. Mary Whitman in Dr. Elizabeth Engle’s Lab as a Research Assistant, studying genetic and environmental factors driving axon guidance in the developing oculomotor system. Jess was the first member of the Whitman Lab at Boston Children's and helped Mary during the transition to her own space. In 2021, she moved to North Carolina to contribute to research focused on understanding the genetic basis of various neuropsychiatric disorders. She is currently working as a Lab Manager/Research Technician and plans to pursue a career in medicine and public health. |