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Meet The Team

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Jake Brenner

MD, PhD

Jake spends 20% of his time attending in the ICU, and 80% developing medical technologies.

Assistant Professor & Attending Physician, Penn Pulmonary & Critical Care and Systems Pharmacology & Translational Therapeutics Department

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Laura Ferguson

MD, MS, MSTR

Clinical Instructor & Attending Physician, Penn Pulmonary & Critical Care

Laura is a pulmonologist with a background in bioengineering.  In the lab she works on developing nanomedicine to treat interstitial lung disease, ex vivo human lung studies of nanocarriers, and next-generation RBC-hitchhiking of nanocarriers.

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Kate Rubey

MD

Postdoc & Attending Physician, CHOP Neonatology

Kate is a neonatologist at CHOP, working in the neonatal ICU (NICU), taking care of critically ill infants.  In lab she works on nanomedicine for severe infections, especially pneumonia, and the mechanisms by which neutrophils recognize nanoparticles.

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Sahiley Reyes-Esteves

MD, PhD

Resident, Penn Neurology

Sahily is primarily doing clinical work, but is also working on developing targeted nanocarriers for treating acute ischemic stroke.

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

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Jichuan Wu

MD, PhD

Jichuan trained in China as a neonatologist (critical care for infants), then worked at Temple University for 15+ years on animal models of acute critical illnesses (ACIs), focused mostly on ARDS and traumatic brain injury.  He joined the Brenner Bioengineering Lab in the summer of 2019, and directs animal experiments on ACIs.

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Jia Nong

PhD

Postdoc

Jia is working on the development of targeted nanomedicine for the treatment of acute illness, and to understand the interaction of nanocarriers with white blood cells to facilitate the engineering and applications of the nanomedicine.

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Zhicheng Wang

PhD

Postdoc

Zhicheng works on the biophysics of how nanoparticles interact with the blood, and how we can use these principles to engineer better nano-scale therapeutics.

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Eno-Obong Essien

MD

Postdoc and Fellow, Penn Pulmonary Division

Eno is working to develop nanocarriers to deliver small molecule drugs and RNA in ARDS models. 

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Marco Zamora

PhD Student, Drexel Bioengineering

Marco is working on two projects.  The first is the development of a nanomedicine-based therapeutic for ARDS using RNA delivery.  The second project involves how the innate immune system interacts with nanocarriers.

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Mike Zaleski

PhD Student, Penn Pharmacology

Mike leads a project in collaboration with a pharmaceutical company to create a nanomedicine-based therapeutic for ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome).

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Anush Lingamoorthy

Ph.D. Student, Drexel Electrical Engineering

Anush is the lead engineer in developing a self-driven wearable medical drug delivery device. The purpose of the device is to combat substance use disorders.

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Serena Omo-Lamai

PhD Student, Penn Bioengineering

Serena is developing nano-scale drug carriers to deliver small molecule drugs and RNA to the brain, for stroke, traumatic brain injury, and hopefully more.

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Liam Chase

PhD Student, Penn Bioengineering

Liam's background is in Bioengineering and Chemistry. He is developing new methods to detect infusion reactions and nanomedicine-based therapeutics for various diseases.

Tiny Human

Nanoscientist

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Yufei Wang

PhD

Postdoc

Yufei is working on the interaction of nanoparticles with in vivo proteins, and their potential application on precise nanodrug delivery.

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Carolann Espy

PhD Student, Penn Pharmacology

Carolann is pursuing her Ph.D. in Pharmacology. Her current project is focused on preventing nanocarriers from activating the innate immune system.

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Manthan Patel 

Manny works on delivering small molecule drugs and nucleic acids using LNPs, focusing on reducing carrier and cargo toxicities.

PhD Student, Penn Pharmacology

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Aparajeeta Majumder 

Research Specialist 

Aparajeeta's work is focused on delivering lipid nanoparticles to the brain, specifically targeting intracerebral hemorrhage.

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