Meet The Team
Principal Investigator: Arunika (Runi) Das
Runi did her undergraduate training in Chemistry and master's in Biochemistry from the University of Calcutta, India. She pursued her Graduate thesis project in Dr. Kim McKim’s lab at Rutgers University, New Jersey studying Drosophila meiosis and oocyte spindles.
She was a co-mentored postdoctoral researcher with Drs. Michael Lampson and Ben Black at the University of Pennsylvania, where she worked on epigenetic inheritance of centromere nucleosomes and histone stability during reproductive aging.
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Runi is an NIH FIRST Faculty in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine!
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Runi is passionate about ballet and music and also loves to read!
Current members
Graduate student
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Anna McKane
Anna is a combined DVM/PhD student who is did a co-mentored summer rotation through the Veterinary Investigator's Program (VIP) with de Mestre and Das labs working on equine centromeres and early pregnancy loss.
Research Technician
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Haley DeJager
Haley is a technician extraordinaire! She works on mouse, tissue culture and flies! She also makes sure the lab runs smoothly.
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Undergraduate
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Josh Lim
Josh will be joining us in Fall 2024 and will be working on both mouse and fly embryos! Josh is a rising senior studying Human Biology, Health, and Society. He is involved in the Korean American Student Association, PulseGuard, and the Community Partnership Funding Board. In his free time, he enjoys taking photos, and playing the viola.
Undergraduate
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Julia Lu
Julia joined in Fall 2024. She is a sophomore student, on the pre-med track and works with Anna on equine centromere epigenetics in cultured cells
Undergraduate
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Skye Romo
Skye is a summer student (2025)
and will study mouse centromere asymmetry
Undergraduate
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Michael Garenani
Michael is an BIO-SIP Fellow and SEG 2024 fellow! He is working on impacts of Drosophila centromere repeats on centromere size and chromosome segregation in embryos.
Veterinary Investigator and Leadership Program (VILP) student
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Amy Matthea Salim
Amy is a Vet student who will investigate how centromere mismatches in embryos impacts aneuploidy
Past Members
Graduate Rotation students
Iana Nikorich (BMCB, 2024-25)
Yuhan Jiang (BMCB, 2024-25)
Jenna Ward (BBS, 2023-24)
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Undergraduate research assistant
Noah Johnson (Pre-Vet track, 2024-25, graduating early!)