Quality Control Personnel
Fariba Fazeli, MD
Associate Director
Fariba received her M.D. degree from Marche Polytechnic University, Italy. She has more than 20 years of academic and industry experience in immunology, oncology, microbiology, and molecular genetics. Prior to joining LCGM, Fariba was the senior development scientist at IncellDx, where she supported validation of cell based assays such as Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization and Multicolor Flow Cytometry for diagnosis of cervical, lung, breast, bladder cancer and various life-threatening infectious diseases. Her projects were from the earliest phases of research through process development and optimization of assays for IVD/CE-IVD prodcuts.
At LCGM, Fariba is responsible for supportting various QC assay qualifications and validations for clinical production of products at different phases according to ICH and FDA guidelines.
Publications and Abstracts
Cell by cell immuno- and cancer marker profiling for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tissue sample using non-enzymatic tissue dissociation and high-parameter flow cytometry. AACR Annual Meeting 2018; April 14-18, 2018; Chicago, IL. 10.1158/1538-7445.AM2018-2112 Published July 2018
Characterizing PD-L1 expression in tumor-associated cells and CTC using IncellDx and Celsee molecular diagnostic technologies. 10.1158/1538-7445.AM2018-635 Published July 2018
Role of polyphosphate in thermophilic Synechococcus sp. from microbial mats. J Bacteriol. 2013 Aug; 195(15):3309-19. Doi: 10.1128/JB.00207-13. Epub 2013 May 17.
Responses of a thermophilic Synechococcus isolate from the microbial mat of Octopus Spring to light. Applied Environmental Microbiology, 2007 Jul; 73(13):4268-78. Epub 2007 May 4.
Phototaxis and Impaired Motility in Adenylyl Cyclase and Cyclase Receptor Protein Mutants of Synechocystis sp. Strain PCC 6803. Journal of Bacteriology, 2006 Oct; 188(20):7306-10.
Julie Antonio-Sipin
QC Specialist
Julie earned her Bachelors of Science in Medical Technology degree from Lyceum Northwestern University, Philippines. Collectively, she has over 10 years in the Quality Control role with the healthcare/ biotechnology industry. She also has 5 years of flow cytometry in a cGMP environment. Previously, she worked as a QC Analyst III for Minaris Regenerative Medicine (formerly known as: HCATS- Hitachi Chemical Advanced Therapeutic Solutions) in the Bay Area.
Julie joined LCGM as a QC Specialist in 2021. She will be supporting various QC flow assays for development, improvement, validation, and testing different Phase I/II clinical trial products.
Dehui Kong
QC Analytical Scientist
Dehui received her B.S. from Tianjin University in 2013, majoring in Chemical Engineering with Hitachi Scholarship (top 5% in ChemE). From 2013 to 2018, she did her Ph.D. study with Professor Ryan Hili at the University of Georgia, majoring in Chemical Biology, with Grimes Family Distinguished Graduate Fellowship (3 students per year). She was awarded the Best Poster Award in 2017 Aptamer@Bordeaux. In 2018, she got selected for oral presentations at ACS conferences and Aptamer@Oxford. From 2019 to 2022, she was a postdoc in Professor Tom Soh’s lab at Stanford School of Medicine. At Stanford, Dehui contributed to several FACS+NGS pipeline projects and led one continuous sensor project. She got selected to Prepare for Future Professor (PFP) at Stanford in 2022.
Dehui published more than 8 academic papers in high-impact factor journals. Before joining LCGM, Dehui had 9+ years of experience in oligo manufacturing, 7+ years of experience in qPCR, ddPCR, and NGS, 4+ years of experience in FACS, 3+ years of experience in Python programming, and 1+ year of experience as a mom.
Xikun Liu
QC Analytical Development Manager
Xikun Liu received her Ph.D. degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Iowa in 2016, with her research focusing on environmental microbiology, utilizing bacteria to degrade human carcinogens. Her work was published in AEM, FEMS and several other peer-reviewed journals. Before join LCGM, she was the Director of Environmental Testing at AEMTEK, leading an AIHA accredited testing lab following ISO/IEC 17025:2017. Xikun is experienced in application and assay design of qPCR, ddPCR and next-generation sequencing, and also has extensive experience in bacteria and fungi culturing, identification and environmental monitoring. Currently, she is primarily responsible for the analytical development and tech-transfer of molecular assays at LCGM QC group.
Trupti Deshpande
QC Senior Specialist
Trupti earned her Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, where she also worked as a researcher in Dr. Gormley’s Lab for a year. She has over 2 years of specialization in Quality Control job duties and responsibilities with a focus in flow cytometry in a cGMP environment. She previously worked for Hitachi Chemicals and Miltenyi Biotec in the Bay Area.
Trupti joined LCGM as a QC Specialist in 2021 for supporting various QC flow assay development, improvement, validation, and testing different Phase I/II clinical trial products
Veronica Nguyen
QC Specialist
Veronica earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Cell Biology from University of California, Davis, where she also worked as an undergraduate research assistant at Dr.Liu’s lab for 1.5 years, working on Arabidopsis cell division. She has ~5 years of GMP experience in manufacturing and quality control at various Biotech companies. Prior to joining LCGM, Veronica has experience working with antibodies, specifically in Immunohistochemistry and Immunofluorescence.
Veronica joined LCGM as a QC Associate in 2021. She is responsible for QC assays such as Flow Cytometry, RT-qPCR, Endotoxin and Sterility testing. She also supports Environmental Monitoring when needed.
Lori Liu
QC Specialist
Lori joined the Laboratory for Cell and Gene Medicine (LCGM) as a Quality Control (QC) Associate in 2021. Currently, they support the Quality Control team by performing environmental monitoring, database management, sterility assays, and inventory management. Lori graduated from the University of California, Riverside with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology in 2019. Since then, Lori has accumulated 3 years of experience working on method development in research science, conservation biology, and biopharmaceutical QC teams.
