Erika received her PhD in immunology from Washington University in St. Louis in 1996. Her doctoral studies, performed under the mentorship of Dr. Bob Schreiber, focused on the roles of interferon-gamma receptor beta chain in JAK/STAT-mediated signal transduction and T cell development. From 1997-2002, she was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Norbert Perrimon’s lab at Harvard Medical School, where she focused her studies on the Drosophila JAK/STAT pathway. Having been a member of the faculty at NYU Grossman School of Medicine since 2002, she has expanded her research agenda into several areas, including cell competition, stem cell dynamics, cellular plasticity, and sex determination.  Erika has published more than 45 peer-reviewed publications and been awarded funding from the NIH, American Cancer Society, New York State Department of Health, March of Dimes, Breast Cancer Alliance and others. She has mentored numerous students and postdocs, who have become successful scientists and professionals. In her spare time, Erika likes to read, exercise and watch soccer.

salvador.cenadorherrera@nyulangone.org

Salva was a doctoral student in the lab of Ginés Morata at the Centro de Biología Molecular (CSIC-UAM) in Madrid, Spain. He studied the role of cell competition in organ size control using the developing Drosophila wing as a model of study and also studied regeneration in the wing disc. He discovered that following injury, an immediate proliferative response is activated in all the cells of the disc, further demonstrating that cells surrounding the injury become reprogrammed into new cell identities by a non-autonomous induction mechanism. His doctoral research was published in eLife, PLoS Genetics, and Development.

In the Bach Lab, Salva discovered that dedifferentiation of spermatogonia into germline stem cells (GSCs) is an important mechanism for maintaining a robust pool of stem cells under stressful conditions. This work was published in eLife. He is currently extending these studies and also investigating the mechanisms of cellular plasticity of other cell types, with specific focus on identifying factors that regulate the transdifferentiation of niche cells in the Drosophila testis into other cell types. He also co-authored a Primer in Development on the roles of the JAK/STAT pathway in stem cells and regeneration. Salva received an EMBO Long-term Fellowship and a Human Frontier Science Program Postdoctoral Fellowship for his work in the Bach Lab. In 2018, he was awarded the Kimmel Senior Postdoc Fellowship from the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Center for Stem Cell Biology at NYU Langone. In his spare time, Salva likes biking, exercising, and learning programming and data science.

ChenYuan.Tseng@nyulangone.org

Yuan was a PhD student in Hwei-Jan Hsu’s lab at the Institute of Life Science, National Defense Medical College, in Taipei, Taiwan. He studied the impact of aging on female germline stem cells (GSCs) and their niche in the adult Drosophila ovary. He demonstrated the critical roles of insulin and Notch signaling in this process. He also studied how the pool of female GSCs is established in the developing ovary and found that this process is regulated by non-canonical BMP signaling. His work was published in PLoS Genetics, Developmental Biology, and Stem Cell Reports. In July 2018, Yuan joined the Bach Lab where he is identifying genes and mechanisms that regulate competition between GSCs for niche access in the Drosophila testis. In 2019, he was selected for support on the NYSTEM Institutional Training Grant awarded to NYU Grossman School of Medicine. In his spare time, Yuan likes to do long-distance running and weight training.

sneh.harsh@nyulangone.org

Sneh was a doctoral student with Pradip Sinha at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. She studied the effect of cancer on the host immune system using Drosophila as model system. She found that initiation of epithelial tumors causes induction of humoral immune responses, which in turn retard the growth of the tumor. Part of this work was published in PNAS. Prior to joining the Bach Lab, Sneh was a postdoc for three years in Ioannis Eleftherianos’ lab at George Washington University. She investigated Drosophila immune responses to viruses and pathogenic bacteria and identified roles for Dicer-2 and lipid droplets. Her work was published in The Journal of Immunology, Open Biology,  and Infection and Immunity.

Sneh joined the Bach lab in November 2018, and is investigating mechanisms regulating cell competition, particularly how supercompetitors (cells with higher JAK/STAT signaling) eliminate wild-type neighbors. She is already a middle author on peer-reviewed papers from the Bach Lab published in Disease Models and Mechanisms and G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics. In her spare time, Sneh likes to read books, watch movies, spend time with friends, and visit beaches (whenever possible).

michael.burel@nyulangone.org

Michael graduated in 2012 with a BS in cellular biology and a certificate in interdisciplinary writing from the University of Georgia where he was a Goldwater Scholar and CURO Honors Scholar. He is a PhD candidate in the stem cell biology training program at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. In 2014, Michael was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for his doctoral work on identifying factors that govern how stem cells compete for niche access using the Drosophila testis as a model system. He is also the founder and content director of the science-as-art website, Biocanvas.

sean.lu@nyulangone.org

Sean graduated from Vassar College with a BA in biochemistry and a correlate in mathematics in May 2018. He joined the Bach Lab in July 2018, and is working on several projects on stem cell-niche interactions in the Drosophila testis. Sean also helps the lab with bioinformatics. He is a middle author on peer-reviewed papers from the Bach Lab published in Disease Models and Mechanisms and G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics. In his spare time, Sean likes to play music, run, and cook.