Lab

R. Babak Faryabi is currently an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Cancer Biology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Babak received his bachelor and master of science degrees from Sharif University of Technology in Iran. He then moved to Texas A&M University, where he  received his Ph.D. in computational biology under the supervision of Drs. Edward Dougherty and Jean-Francois Chamberland. Babak then joined the laboratory of Dr. Andre Nussenzweig at the NIH as a postdoctoral fellow to study the mechanisms of epigenetic dysregulation in B cell lymphomas. As an independent investigator, Babak uses systems-based approaches to understand molecular underpinning of genome folding and transcriptional addiction in cancer. He is the recipient of a number of awards including the Susan G. Komen Foundation Career Catalyst Research Award, Cooper Scholar Award, and Concern Foundation Conquer Cancer Now Award. He serves as an Associate Editor of Breast Cancer Research  journal.

Yeqiao is a postdoctoral researcher studying underlying mechanisms of genome folding reorganization during drug resistance development in Notch-mutated cancers. During her PhD studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Yeqiao dissected the cause-and-effect relationships between genome folding and Notch-signaling to elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying pathogenesis and treatment response in Notch-mutated cancers. Yeqiao has received her BSc and MSc in biotechnology from the Sun Yat-sen University and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively, where she investigated epigenetic mechanisms of transcription regulation in B cell lymphomas.

Jingru is a student in the Cellular and Molecular Biology Graduate Group. She received a B.S. in Biology and B.A. in Economics from Emory University in 2018. During her undergraduate, she studied the role actin polymerization plays during the development of pulmonary hypertension. Her current research in the Faryabi Lab focuses on how enhancer activity and 3D chromatin conformation are regulated to promote the expression of developmental transcription factors in breast cancer.

Emily Ferrari manages the lab and studies the role of long non-coding RNAs in breast cancer. Emily joined the Faryabi lab after studying Lamb-Shaffer Syndrome at Lefebvre Lab at CHOP. Emily received a B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College in 2019, where she conducted research on long non-coding RNAs in human cells and their role in cancer progression.

Ilias is a postdoctoral researcher studying mechanisms of 3D cancer genome. Before joining the Faryabi lab, he studied the spatial regulation of transcription in cancer and circadian cycle, with a particular focus on the expression of the oncogene MYC, in the Göndör Lab at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden. Ilias received his BSc, MSc, and PhD from the University of Crete in Greece, the Aix-Marseille University in France, and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, respectively.

Tim is a Bioengineering Ph.D. student in the Faryabi Lab. He received a B.E. in Biomedical Engineering and Mathematics from Vanderbilt University in 2022. During undergrad, he separately studied the regulatory functions of Gle1 in mRNA transport and the association between gene expression and anatomical/functional phenotypes in the human brain. 

Ashkan Bigledi joined the Faryabi lab as a PhD student through Drexel University. He obtained his BSc and MSc in biotechnology from the University of Rhode Island and Harvard University, respectively. Ashakan specializes in computational applications in clinical oncology and his research focuses on pathogenicity prediction of somatic variations in patient populations.

Rachel joined the Faryabi lab as a research specialist less than a month after she graduated college. Rachel received a B.A. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Bryn Mawr College in 2022. During her undergraduate degree, she conducted research on mevalonate kinase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae by investigating its structure and kinetics to elucidate the structural basis for its inhibition. 

Colin McGovern is an application developer in the Faryabi lab. He received a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Delaware. Before joining the lab, Colin was a lead software engineer for a biotechnology company where he contributed to the development of an automated Hemoglobin A1c analyzation machine, including development of a real time algorithm to deconvolute HPLC peaks.

Michael is an application developer working on Human Pancreatic Atlas Project (HPAP). He has more than 20 years experience working on scientific and technical projects, including medical imaging tools, neural model simulations, vision psychophysics experiments and data visualization. In addition, Michael has worked on consumer projects for music software and music visualization, which tap into his hobby as an amateur musician. Michael has graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a master in Computer Graphics and Gaming Technology. Michael’s undergraduate work was in biology and neuroscience, and he enjoys being involved with scientific and medical research to both keep his curiosity piqued and to be a part of improving peoples’ lives.

Nilanjana is Project Manager and Data Analyst working on Human Pancreas Analysis Program (HPAP). Following her B.S and M.S in Biomedical Genetics from VIT University, India, Nilanjana joined Drexel University where she graduated in Master of Public Health. Prior joining our lab, Nilanjana conducted data analysis and visualization in projects studying health disparity in marginalized populations. She currently continues her education in Biomedical Informatics Certificate at the University of Pennsylvania with the focus on similar areas.

Dongbo is a database developer working on Human Pancreatic Analysis Project (HPAP). After completing his graduate studies in chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dongbo became interested in computer science and completed his M.S in Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Dongbo’s technical interests spans a broad area of computer science including scientific algorithmic design, web development as well as C++ and Python programming on Unix/Linux.

As a bioinformatician in the Faryabi Lab, Noah is developing pipelines for integrative analysis of 1D and 3D epigenomic data in cancer. He received his BSc in Computational Biology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2022. His undergraduate research focused on molecular docking and computer-aided drug design, as well as protein structure determination. Noah’s interests span a wide range of bioinformatics applications, particularly how bioinformatics toolkits can be used to accurately predict molecular drivers of genome folding reorganization.