Our Team
Tuuli Lappalainen, PhD
Tuuli Lappalainen is a Professor in Genomics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, an Senior Associate Faculty Member at the New York Genome Center, and the Director of the National Genomics Infrastructure and Genomics Platform of SciLifeLab. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Systems Biology at Columbia University.
Her research focuses on functional genetic variation in human populations and its contribution to traits and diseases. She has pioneered the intergration of large-scale genome and transcriptome sequencing data to understand how genetic variation affects gene expression, providing insight to cellular mechanisms underlying genetic risk for disease.
Tuuli received her PhD from University of Helsinki, Finland in 2009, followed by postdoctoral research at University of Geneva, Switzerland and at Stanford University. She started her own lab in New York in 2014, got tenure at Columbia University in 2020, and in 2021 she was appointed a Professor at KTH. She splits her time between Stockholm and New York City.
tlappalainen at nygenome.org and tuuli.lappalainen at scilifelab.se
@ SciLifeLab & KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Philipp Rentzsch, PhD
Philipp is a computational postdoc in the Stockholm lab. Previously, he studied molecular biotechnology at University of Heidelberg and did his PhD with Martin Kircher at Charité, Berlin on the variant effect predictor CADD. He is interested in finding and predicting genomic variants that drive changes in gene expression and phenotype.
When not in the lab, he is likely exploring, mostly by bike, SUP, ski or mars helicopter.
philipp.rentzsch at scilifelab.se
Carmen Bjurström, PhD
Carmen is a researcher in the Stockholm lab and is in charge of thee wetlab activities.
She obtained her master’s degree in Bioinformatics and PhD in Medical Science from Lund University, Sweden. Her research interest has consistently been focused on cell and gene therapy for blood disorders, which led her to pursue a postdoc at the Dept of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UCLA, to work on gene-editing of hematopoietic stem cells as a therapy for sickle cell disease. She is interested in studying functional population genomics, integrating CRISPR and single cell approaches with transcriptomics.
carmen.bjurstrom at scilifelab.se
Sulagda Dasgupta, BSc
Sulagna is a PhD student in the Stockholm lab. Having completed her Masters in Biotechnology from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, India, she moved to Stockholm to pursue a career in genetics. She is passionate about studying the cross talk between regulatory genome and gene dosage, and wants to combine her experience in the wet lab with cutting edge dry lab techniques to achieve exciting results.
When not in lab, she could be found in her kitchen cooking curries or exploring the best fika places in town.
sulagna.dasgupta at scilifelab.se.
Linda Kvastad, PhD
Linda joined the lab as a postdoc in the fall of 2022 after completing her Ph.D. in Sweden at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) under the supervision of Joakim Lundeberg. She developed and applied spatial transcriptomics methods to characterize cellular landscapes in tissues, focusing on pediatric brain tumors. In the Lappalainen lab, Linda is interested in genome-wide population differences and their effect on human diseases.
linda.kvastad at scilifelab.se
Sanna Gudmundsson, PhD
Sanna joined the lab in 2023 as a researcher working to advance rare disease diagnosis and treatment by improved understanding of variant-disease relationship and fundamental biological mechanisms. Her main focus is investigating factors that protect some carriers from severe disease, known as incomplete penetrance, using large-scale data. She obtained her PhD from Uppsala University (2019), working on rare disease discovery and did her postdoctoral training at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (2019-2022) working on improving variant to function interpretation and incomplete penetrance of rare disease in gnomAD.
sanna.gudmundsson at scilifelab.se
Emma Inns
Emma Inns started working as a part-time assistant to Tuuli in September 2022. Since leaving the UK where she was an Intensive Care nurse, Emma has gained over a decade of experience working as both a personal assistant and an administrator at Karolinska Institutet. In her spare time she enjoys walking, yoga, shopping, hanging out with family and friends, and good food.
emma.inns at scilifelab.se
@ New York Genome Center
Marcello Ziosi, PhD
Marcello is responsible for running our wetlab. Before joining the lab he was Associate Research Scientist at the Huston Merrit Center at Columbia University studying genetics and molecular basis of mitochondrial diseases. He obtained his PhD from Bologna University, Italy. He focused his scientific activity on the study of cell competition, a homeostatic cell communication mechanism that leads to the elimination of unfit and potentially malignant cells. In 2011 he moved to New York City as a postdoc at Columbia University to study the genetics and metabolic requirements of cell competition and the role of mitochondria in that.
mziosi at nygenome.org
Brielin Brown, PhD
Brielin is a research fellow at the Data Science Institute, jointly affiliated with the New York Genome Center and supervised by Dr. David Knowles and Dr. Tuuli Lappalainen. Brielin's research lies at the intersection of machine learning and genomics. He is broadly interested in understanding how genetics and environment combine to lead to disease through changes in cellular function. To this end, he develops machine learning algorithms for modeling and inference in large-scale genomic studies. Before coming to Columbia, Brielin completed a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley and worked as a computational biologist at Verily Life Sciences. As a PhD student, Brielin was supported by an NSF fellowship and Chancellors fellowship for graduate study. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia, earning a BS in Physics and a BA in Computer Science. In his spare time, Brielin enjoys techno music and is an avid surfer.
bbrown at nygenome.org
Scott Adamson, PhD
Scott joined the lab in fall of 2021 as a postdoc. He earned his BS in Environmental Science as well as his PhD in Biomedical Sciences from University of Connecticut. During his PhD, he worked under the supervision of Brenton Graveley to develop massively parallel reporter assays to identify the impact of genetic variance on pre-mRNA splicing, as well as understand splicing regulation more generally. In the Lappalainen lab, he is interested in developing new ways to predict and test the connection between genotype, splicing, and phenotype. He is co-supervised by Dr. David Knowles.
sadamson at nygenome.org
Claire Harbison, BSc
Claire joined the lab as a lab technician in 2022, after graduating with a BSc in chemistry and bioscience from the University of Pittsburgh. She previously worked in neurobiological and clinical neurology labs, providing wet lab support to researchers. In the Lappalainen lab, she is assisting on multiple projects relating to apoptosis pathways. She is also working to complete her Master's in Biomedical Laboratory Management at CUNY Hunter College.
Marliette Matos, BSc
Marliette Matos is currently a PhD candidate at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Laboratory of John Greally. She works with us on a collaborative project focusing on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of aging within the T cell compartment.
After graduating from Florida International University with a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, Marli came to New York as a NIH Post Baccalaureate (PREP) Scholar at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai under the mentorship of Kristen Brennand, where she studied genetic predisposition to psychiatric disorders using CRISPR hiPSC-derived neuronal models. Her growing interest for the genetics of complex diseases led Marli to pursue a PhD in Biomedical Sciences at Einstein. She is interested in genome wide transcriptomic profiling and quantitative genetics approaches such as QTL mapping and GWAS.
On her free time, Marli loves staying active and enjoys any opportunity to go for a run on a nice weather day. She ran the NYC Marathon in 2023 and now she is venturing into winter sports.
Nathan Andrews, PhD
Nathanael (Nathan) Andrews has joined NYGC as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Lappalainen and Sanjana Labs. Raised primarily in Sweden, he completed his Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. During his PhD studies, Nathan worked on the development of multi-modal single-cell RNA sequencing techniques to study the role of cell interactions and gene regulation in cancer. At the NYGC, His focus now turns to autoimmune diseases, aiming to characterize cell states and their associated regulatory elements which determine disease progression and severity.
Driven by the intricacies of gene regulation and its role in shaping cell identity, Nathan is dedicated to employing scalable methods to dissect the regulatory elements that maintain cell function and their alteration in disease, with the ultimate goal of discovering new targets for therapeutic intervention.
Samuel Ghatan, PhD
Sam is a Post-doc at the New York Genome Center. His research focuses on generating single-cell eQTL and transcriptomic data, contributing to the understanding of genetic expression patterns.
He grew up in North East London, near the Essex border, and pursued his undergraduate studies in Chemistry at the University of Liverpool. Sam's interest in the genetics of disease led him to complete a Master's in Neuroscience, specializing in psychiatric genetics, at King’s College London. He then moved to The Netherlands for his PhD in Genetic Epidemiology, where he researched the genetic aspects of Type 2 diabetes and the musculoskeletal system.
Outside of the lab, Sam enjoys traveling and exploring new places, especially those by the sea.
Danny Simpson, PhD
Danny Simpson is a Postdoctoral Research Associate jointly mentored with Neville Sanjana at the New York Genome Center. Previously, Danny completed their PhD in quantitative biology with a focus on CRISPR technology development at Princeton University under Dr. Britt Adamson. Danny is interested in learning about the effects of genetic variation on autoimmune disease development, with broader interests in splicing mechanisms and off-target effects in CRISPR systems. In their free time, Danny enjoys spending time outside and juggling.
Kathryn Bedrosian
Kathryn Bedrosian is an executive assistant for faculty at the NY Genome Center, working for the Lappalainen, Sanjana and Gursoy labs. A native Michigander, she moved to New York in 2004 and currently lives in Bayside, Queens. While pursuing her master’s degree at Michigan State University, she had the opportunity to teach undergraduate students, and she enjoys the opportunity to again work with students.
kbedrosian at nygenome.org
Affiliates and visitors
Kristina Buschur, PhD. Kristina is a postdoc working with Dr. Graham Barr at Columbia University. She works with the lab on joint projects on molecular architecture of lung disease.
Alumni
John Morris, Postdoc (2018-2022).
Winona Oliveros, Visiting student (2023-2024).
Mariia Minaeva, Master’s student (2021-2023).
Demirhan Cetereisi, Postdoc (2022-2023).
Julía Domingo, Postdoc (2020-2023),
Ana Mello, Visiting student (2023)
Aaron Kollotzek, Master’s Student (2023)
Molly Martorella, PhD student (2018-2022).
Jonah Einson, PhD student, postdoc (2018-2023).
Paul Hoffman, Bioinformatic Scientist (2018-2022).
Athena Tsu, Undergraduate student (2020-2023).
Renee Garcia, Visiting student (2021-2022).
Silva Kasela, Postdoc (2018-2022).
Martin Broly, Researcher (2020-2021).
Marion Korach-André, Research Coordinator (Oct 2021-Aug 2022)
Vardiella Meinier, Professor on a sabbatical (2020)
Anu Pasanen, Postdoc (2019-2021).
Elise Flynn, MSc, PhD student (2017-2021).
Dafni Glinos, Postdoc (2018-2021).
Stephane Castel, Postdoctoral Researcher, Senior Research Fellow (2014-2021).
Sailalitha Bollepalli, Postdoc (2020-2021)
Margot Brandt, PhD student (2014-2019).
Erica Bertisch, Executive Assistant (2014-2019)
Yige Zhao, Rotation student (2019)
Nora Lam, Rotation student (2019)
Alper Gokden, Associate Scientist I (2017-2019).
Sarah Kim-Hellmuth, Postdoc (2015-2019).
Ana Vasileva, Senior Staff Scientist (2014-2018).
Pejman Mohammadi, Postdoc (2015-2018).
Aaron Wolman, Associate Scientist I (2015-2017).
Yocelyn Recinos, Rotation student (2018)
Edward Ruiz, Rotation student (2018)
Nicholas Giangreco, Rotation student (2016)
Alejandra Cervera, Visiting student (2016)
Alexandre Yahi, Rotation student (2016)
Zach Baker, Rotation student (2015)
Ana Pascoini, Research Assistant (2014-2015)