Meet the Team

Associate Professor (Research) of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Reproductive and Stem Cell Biology)

Lab Members

Andrea Cipriano, PhD
Instructor

Bio

Dr. Andrea Cipriano is an Instructor at the Stem Cell Institute and at the Ob/Gyn department at Stanford School of Medicine. Since the beginning of his career, he was driven by a deep interest in the complexities of life emerging from just a single cell, but still harboring all the instructions to produce a fully functional organism. His academic journey began with a bachelor’s in Biotechnology and progressed to a Master's in Genomic Biotechnology, where he delved into the intricate world of RNA. During his PhD, Andrea focused on long non-coding RNAs and their pivotal role in cell differentiation, a topic that continues to fascinate him in his current research. He works in the Sebastiano lab, and he is directing several projects, including studying the transcription factor Tbx1 during development of the Pharyngeal endoderm, and exploring the impact of time on Chromatin Structure, particularly in the context of aging and its potential reversal.

As an instructor, Andrea has been teaching at the intensive CIRM stem cell class biology course and at the Stem Cell Biology and Applications Stanford minicourse BIOS224. Teaching is a big passion that fuels his academic pursuits. His dedication to education stems from a deep-seated belief in the transformative power of knowledge, which is what initially propelled him into the academic world.

Nina Nguyen
Bio-X Undergraduate Fellow

Bio

Nina Yến Nhi Thị Nguyễn is an undergraduate researcher. She was born in Vietnam, but my family home is in Anaheim, California. She is an undergraduate student exploring her interests in stem cell biology and research in the context of obstetrics and gynecology, though she is also piqued by history and philosophy. Currently, she is shadowing and assisting in various projects around the lab in order to learn and experience as much as she can. Outside of lab and school, she enjoys playing tennis, reading, meditating, and trying new cuisines with friends.

Zhen Wang, MD, MSc
Basic Life Research Scientist

Bio

Dr. Zhen Wang completed medical education in China and had postdoc training at Stanford in Dr. Michael Longaker lab. He worked as a research scientist and lab supervisor in the Department of Surgery before joining Dr. Sebastiano Lab. His research interests focus on cellular stress response in regenerative medicine and stem cell biology. He has expertise in skin wounding healing, scar formation, bone fracture, tendon repair as well as osteoarthritis. Currently, he is working on epigenetic regulation of aging, especially skin aging. He enjoys working with young researchers and collaborating with labs in different fields. When not studying science or in a lab, he likes to spend time with my family and friends.

Mahdi Moqri, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

Bio

Dr. Mahdi Moqri is an NIH T32 Postdoctoral Fellow in Aging Research working at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and the Stanford Department of Genetics. His current research is in multi-omics, in particular epigenomics, of aging at the Sebastiano Lab and the Snyder Lab. He is also a visiting scholar at Harvard Medical School, working at the Gladyshev lab while studying Biology at Harvard. He was a T15 Postdoctoral Fellow in Biomedical Informatics at Stanford from 2020 to 2022. He served as an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Iowa State University, developing large-scale machine learning models for predicting patients’ outcomes, before joining Stanford.

Sajede Rasouli, MSc
Life Science Research Professional

Bio

Sajede "Sasha" Rasouli is a passionate and self-motivated microbiologist/molecular biologist with years of R&D experience in both academia and industry. She has a B.Sc and M.Sc. in Microbiology from her country, Iran. For her second master’s program, she joined Dr. Elizabeth Skovran's lab at San Jose State University to expand her skill set toward molecular biology and genetic engineering. During her master’s, she obtained an excellent opportunity to attend the CIRM stem cell workshop and there, she found herself fascinated by the stem cell world, aging, and cell reprogramming. Afterward, she joined Dr. Sebastiano’s lab as LSRP/Lab Manager and her focus is on epigenetic characterization of cellular aging and rejuvenation, using state of the art technologies here at Stanford. 

In detail, she is working on validating and increasing the resolution of our recently developed PCR2 aging clock by performing Chromatin Immunoprecipitation assay (ChIP) on PRC2 binding sites in fibroblast with aim of enriching these regions to have a higher resolution coverage. We are studying epigenetic effect of in vitro cellular proliferation on aging and investigating the dynamics of OKSM factors. Following that, one of her projects is optimizing the transfection efficiency of OKSM factors with generating various carrier constructs such as self-amplifying RNA, Retro and Lenti viral constructs with different combination of the factors using numerous selection markers.

In her free time, she likes to do outdoor social activities, enjoy hiking on beautiful trails in the Bay, playing volleyball, and spending time with her little nephew. 

Priscila Chiavellini, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

Bio

Dr. Priscila Chiavellini is deeply interested in the underlying biological mechanisms of development occurring from birth to death. To her mind, one of the most significant promises of this science lies in understanding those mechanisms to improve the quality of life of the elderly.

At college, she pursued a five-year degree in Biotechnology and Molecular Biology at Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina, her home country. Then at the same institution, she obtained her doctoral degree in cell reprogramming to implement rejuvenation in aging rodents by restoring their biological age. The aim was to partially reprogram the nervous system using an adenovirus to revert age-associated memory impairment in old rats.

Dr. Sebastiano's lab has developed powerful tools in the reprogramming and rejuvenation field. During her Ph.D., he opened his lab doors to have me involved on a short-term visit. After getting her degree, she joined his team as a postdoc.

Currently, she is mainly working on the mechanisms of partial reprogramming project. She is seeking to understand the molecular processes occurring during the transient expression of the Yamanaka factors to rejuvenate aged cells.

In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, and following her beloved Estudiantes de La Plata.

Kenisha Puckett, M.S.
PhD Candidate

Bio

Kenisha Puckett grew up in Southern California and received her bachelor’s in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Riverside (UCR). Before becoming a scientist, she worked in higher education as a Student Affairs Officer at collegiate institutions, such as the University of California, Los Angeles, and Moreno Valley College, improving talent acquisition for the STEM workforce.

She relocated to the Bay Area in 2016 to pursue her master’s degree in cell and molecular biology at San Francisco State University (SFSU). While at SFSU, she was a scholar with the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). As a CIRM scholar, her thesis work in the lab of Dr. Susan Fisher investigated the impact of exposure to environmental toxins on human pregnancy at the University of California, San Francisco.

Today, she is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in the Sebastiano lab. Her thesis research utilizes her previous skills as a reproductive biologist, again focusing on the human placenta stem cells called trophoblasts. She aims to develop a tool for high-throughput generation of trophoblast stem cells in vitro. Her dissertation will contribute to future therapeutics to reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes.

When not in the lab, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their three-year-old son. Otherwise, you may catch her at indoor cycling or being a freelance makeup artist.

Alessandro Calicchio, MS
Life Science Research Professional

Bio

Nina Alessandro Calicchio grew up in a small town in the northern countryside of Italy and got her Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and Technologies in the near Insubria University in Varese. After that to pursue her interests in molecular biology and genetics that she developed during her undergraduate studies, she moved to Rome where she obtained a Master’s Degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology. Here she worked in Dr. Irene Bozzoni’s laboratory in Rome studying long non-coding RNAs Charme and its involvement in the differentiation and development of cardiac and skeletal muscle tissues. After the end of her first master's, having understood the importance of bioinformatics in modern biological research, she enrolled in the Bioinformatics and Data Science master’s degree course at Siena University that allowed her to intern as a bioinformatician at Polo di Innovazione Genetica, Genomica e di Biologia. To further pursue her ambition to work in biological research, she applied to the life science researcher position in Dr. Vittorio Sebastiano’s laboratory at Stanford University and she started working there at the end of 2022. Here, she is studying the role of T-box transcription factor 1 (TBX1) in pharyngeal endoderm development. When not in the lab, she enjoys trying new food, cooking and watching Juventus matches.