Members
Current Lab Members
Stephanie Matt
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Stephanie Matt is a postdoctoral research associate who graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018 with a PhD in Neuroscience. She has had extensive training in the analysis of genetic and epigenetic changes in primary microglia. She is interested in defining the role of microglia in dopamine and HIV-associated neuroinflammation. Her initial project in the lab examined the mechanisms by which dopamine affects HIV entry through changes in the co-receptor CCR5 (Matt et. al., 2021) and she is now developing an independent project focusing on the neuroimmunomodulatory impact of dopamine and neuropsychiatric drugs in myeloid cells in the context of HIV infection. In 2019, Stephanie was named a Brody Family Trust Fund Fellow for her work on the interaction of dopamine and CCR5, and in 2021 she received the Cotswold Fellowship for her work examining dopamine mediated inflammasome activity in microglia.
Breana Channer
MD/PhD Student
Breana Channer is a 4th year MD/PhD student at Drexel University College of Medicine. Breana joined the lab in May 2021 for the PhD portion of her degree. Her project focuses on defining the inflammatory impact of dopamine on myeloid cells from different organ compartments in the presence or absence of HIV. She is currently examining the impact of dopamine on activation of the NF-kB pathway using high content image analysis, as well as defining the impact of different culture conditions on macrophage activity.
Alexis Brantly
PhD Student
Alexis Brantly is a 3rd year PhD student in the Microbiology and Immunology program at Drexel University College of Medicine. Alexis joined the Nonnemacher Lab in 2021, but spends a substantial amount of time with the Gaskill Lab due to her intensive focus on high content image analysis. Her project focuses on examining viral dynamics in different types of myeloid cells such as hMDM and Kupffer cells using high content imaging, defining infectious phenotypes and the changes in the progression of infection during ART and in response to comorbid conditions such as hepatitis or substance misuse.
Teresa LuPone
PhD Student
Teresa LuPone is a 5th year PhD student in the Microbiology and Immunology program. She joined the lab in February 2022. Her project focuses on defining strain specific changes in the effects of dopamine HIV entry and viral infectivity, as well as examining how dopamine disrupts the efficacy of anti-retroviral drugs. To assess these, she is developing a number of assays using high content imaging to evaluate viral entry and the production of infectious visions.
Dayna Robinson
MS Student
Dayna Robinson is a 2nd year master's student in the Pharmacology and Physiology program. She joined the lab in the spring of 2022, and is focusing on defining the signaling mechanisms by which dopamine regulates NF-kB and inflammasome activity in human macrophages. She is specifically examining the activation of the Akt pathway.
Tofunmi Oteju
PhD Student
Tofunmi Oteju is a 2nd year PhD student in the Pharmacology and Physiology program. She joined the lab in June 2022 and is developing her thesis project, which will broadly focus on the use of inducible pluripotent stem cell derived myeloid cells to define the molecular mechanisms by which substances of misuse influence the development of neuroHIV.
Chan-Krisna Mompho
Lab Technician
Chan-Krisna Mompho is our lab technician. He joined the lab during his junior year co-op in fall of 2020 and has continued to work in the lab since graduating from Drexel in March of 2022 and joining the lab full time. Krisna manages lab administrative tasks as well as working with Dr. Stephanie Matt examining the role of non-dopamine monoamines such as norepinephrine and serotonin, on changes in myeloid gene expression.
Former Lab Members
Hannah Johnson was a sophomore at Drexel who joined the lab as a STAR student in the spring of 2018. Hannah's project used high-content image analysis to examine inflammatory changes in non-human primate brains in response to acute dopamine treatment.
Emily Nickoloff was a 3rd year PhD student in the Pharmacology and Physiology PhD program, who joined the lab in the summer of 2017. Her research examined the mechanisms by which dopamine increases the susceptibility of macrophages to HIV infection, focusing on the mechanism(s) by which the dopaminergic signaling processes in human myeloid cells increase HIV entry.
Rachel Nolan was a fellow of the Interdisciplinary & Translational Research Training in neuroAIDS (T32 MH079795) program, and an MD/PhD student working on her neuroscience doctorate in the Gaskill Lab. She studied cognitive neuroscience at Vanderbilt University, and became interested in immunology and neurodegeneration during her medical school studies. She investigated how cytokines/chemokines interact with neurotransmitter systems in order to study how inflammatory states influence cognition and behavior and vice versa. The goal of Rachel’s research was to elucidate the role of drug abuse and dopamine signaling in the exacerbation of HIV-associated neurocognitive impairment. She also studied the role of macrophage dopamine receptors in mediating cytokine production and neuroinflammation.
Yi Rong was a 2nd year master's student in the Drug Discovery & Development program, who joined the Gaskill Lab in late 2017. His research was part of the examination of the mechanisms by which dopamine can increase HIV infection into macrophages. His specific project focused on determining whether dopamine-induced changes in the cell surface localization of CCR5 are involved in mediating an increase in HIV infection in macrophages.
Kaitlyn Runner was a research technician who graduated from King's College in 2015 with a BS in neuroscience and biology. She entered and completed one year of graduate school at West Virginia University in the neuroscience program before leaving West Virginia to come to Philadelphia to work in the Gaskill Lab. Kaitlyn organized the lab, managed orders and acted as the primary point-of-contact for the laboratory. The focus of Kaitlyn's research was characterizing the dopamine mediated signaling pathways in macrophages and how these signaling pathways change with HIV infection.
Gal Rappaport joined the Gaskill Lab during the summer of 2016 as part of the Students Tackling Advanced Research (STAR) Scholars program, and continued there during her first co-op. Gal decided to continue to work in the lab during the school year as an undergraduate research technician. Her project focused on elucidating the signaling pathways activated by endogenous macrophage dopamine receptors in macrophages, and used primarily molecular biology techniques such as western blotting.
Back to Top