Postdoctoral Researchers
Xiuming Quan, PhD
Xiuming is investigating the impacts of epigenetic regulations on brain aging and C9orf72 associated ALS/FTD.
email: xiuming@sas.upenn.edu
China Byrns, MS, PhD.
China is an MD-PhD candidate at Penn, currently completing a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Bonini studying senescent glia in healthy brain aging.
email: china.byrns@uphs.upenn.edu
Graduate Students
PhD Candidates
Alexandra Perlegos, PhD candidate in Neuroscience
Alexandra focuses on the RNA modification N6-methyladenosine (m6A) and understanding its critical role in cellular stress as well as chronic stress states in the brain, particularly aging and degenerative disease.
email: perlegos@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Zhecheng Jin, PhD candidate in Biology
Jin focuses on response pathway and regulatory mechanism in Traumatic Brain Injury and neurodegeneration.
email: zhecheng@sas.upenn.edu
MS Candidates
Emily Zhou, MS candidate in Biology
Emily joined the lab as a Junior at the University of Pennsylvania and now is working as a Master’s student with Zhecheng Jin. She is interested in understanding the mechanism of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and studying the transcription regulations of Eiger by Puckered gene in fly glial cells.
email: shuyanz@sas.upenn.edu
Visiting Scientists
Oksana Shcherbakova, PhD
Oksana is interested in exploring the epigenetic changes in age-associated neurodegenerative diseases and studying the role of dACSS2 in epigenetic memory.
email: oksanas@sas.upenn.edu
Staff
Regan Wilson, Lab Manager and Research Specialist
Regan joined the Bonini Lab as the Lab Manager and Research Specialist after completing their MES Capstone at the University of Pennsylvania. They are currently assisting graduate researchers with their research experiments.
email: rrwilson@sas.upenn.edu
Kirby Donnelly, PhD
Kirby is currently studying the effect of ATXN2 and TDP43 on m6A RNA modifications.
email: kirbymd@sas.upenn.edu
Madison Holmes, Junior Research Specialist
Madison joined the Bonini Lab as a Junior Research Specialist after graduating from Millersville University with a B.S. in Biology with a concentration in Molecular Biology. She currently assists post-
doctoral and graduate researchers with their research experiments.
email: mcholmes@sas.upenn.edu
Undergraduate Students
Alhena Islam, Research Assistant
Alhena is a senior pursuing a B.A. in Biology with a concentration in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is working under Xiuming Quan on understanding the mechanism of C9orf72 related amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).
email: alhena@sas.upenn.edu