Congratulations to Core Member Arjun Raj, PhD, who was recently awarded the 2023-24 George H. Heilmeier Faculty Award for Excellence in Research! He was selected for this award to recognize his work “pioneering the development and application of single-cell, cancer-fighting technologies.”
The Heilmeier Award honors a Penn Engineering faculty member whose work is scientifically meritorious and has high technological impact and visibility.
Congratulations to Rexxi Prasasya, PhD, who has been awarded a K99 Pathway to Independence Award. Dr. Prasasya, a Research Associate in the Bartolomei Lab, received this award for her project titled “Molecular determinants of sex-specific DNA methylation signature acquisition in the mammalian germline.”
She plans to use this award to continue her research into elucidating how the most sexually dimorphic epigenetic marks, DNA methylation, is established in the germ cells. Aberrant DNA methylation in gametes is associated with idiopathic infertility, poorer outcomes during fertility treatment, and can be deleterious to early embryonic development. Using various mouse genetic models, Dr. Prasasya will be investigating intracellular and extracellular cues that instruct the patterning of DNA methylation in oocytes and sperm.
Marisa Bartolomei has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Congratulations Marisa!
Rexxi Prasasya in the Bartolomei lab was awarded an NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellowship. Congratulations!
An article in Penn Today highlights the Penn Academy for Reproductive Sciences (PARS), a high school program geared at teaching high school girls about fertility, epigenetics, and other areas of reproductive health. Marisa Bartolomei leads the program, along with Jamie Shuda. The program is a joint effort between the Penn Epigenetics Institute and the Penn Institute of Regenerative Medicine and is funded by the NIH. Hearty congratulations to Marisa for being part of such an impactful program!
Lisa Vrooman (postdoctoral fellow in the Bartolomei lab) was awarded best short talk at the International Federation of Placenta Associations (IFPA) meeting in Japan in September.
Aimee Juan (a combined degree student in the Bartolomei lab) was awarded an F31 from NICHD, entitled, Investigating the Epigenetic Regulation of Imprinted Gene Grb10 in Neurodevelopment.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Lisa Vrooman from the Bartolomei Lab, Awarded NIH F32 Fellowship!
‘Investigation of epigenetic and morphological placental abnormalities induced by in vitro fertilization’.