Principal Investigator
Stuart Friess, MD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Critical Care Medicine
- Phone: 314-286-2799
- Email: friess@nospam.wustl.edu
Stuart Friess grew up in Long Island before studying biomedical engineering at Brown University. He completed medical school, pediatric residency and chief residency at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He then completed fellowship training in critical care medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and was on faculty for six years at CHOP/UPENN before moving to Washington University in 2012.
His outside interests — when not carting his kids around to their sporting events — include racket sports, basketball, softball and following NY sports teams.
Personnel
Marta Celorrio, PhD
Instructor in Pediatrics, Critical Care Medicine
Marta is a research instructor in the Friess lab. She graduated with a degree in pharmacy from Universidad de Navarra, Spain, in 2010. After that, she completed a Master’s in neuroscience at the same institution and continued her doctorate studies in Parkinson’s disease within the neuroscience area in the Center of Applied Medical Research in Pamplona, Spain, until 2015. Her work includes focus on exploring the effects and mechanisms of secondary hypoxemia/brain hypoxia following traumatic brain injury (TBI) involving the murine platform that the Friess lab has developed and explores novel therapeutics for brain protection. Recently, she is silencing neurons and astrocytes using designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) approaches to study the astrocytes and neurons effect on EPO-increased fear response. In addition, she works hard in characterizing the immune system response in the brain and in the gut by flow cytometry in antibiotic-induced microbial dysbiosis model after TBI.
In her free time, she usually loves going to the cinema and going out for dinner with her friends to nice places and playing the guitar with her community church.
Sophia Xiao
Undergraduate student
Sophia is a senior at Washington University in St. Louis who is planning on majoring in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology and minoring in French. She joined the Friess lab in the fall of 2018 and has been aiding in rodent fear conditioning behavior and analysis and tissue preparation to test the effects of neuroprotective therapeutics following delayed hypoxemia. She plans on continuing this research throughout her time as an undergraduate and would be interested in performing similar research while pursuing a medical degree in the future.
Ilakkia Anabayan
Undergraduate student
Ilakkia is a senior at Emory University who is majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. She joined the Friess lab in summer 2019 as a participant in the Pediatric Student Research Program (PSRP). Being back home due to COVID has allowed her to continue working in the lab throughout her junior year. She has been responsible for analyzing behavioral data and tissue to understand the effects of various neuroprotective therapies as well as characterizing antibiotic exposure in pediatric TBI patients. In the future, she hopes to attend medical school and stay involved in neurotrauma research. Outside of the lab, Ilakkia enjoys doing improv comedy, singing, and playing the guitar.
Camryn Payne
Undergraduate student
Camryn is a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in neuroscience and minoring in anthropology. Since joining the Friess lab in January 2020, she has focused on the neuroprotective effects of minocycline following delayed hypoxemia after TBI.
Past personnel
McKenzie Davies
Research Technician
McKenzie was a research technician in the Friess lab in 2016-2017. Her work included investigating the long-term sequelae of secondary hypoxemia after TBI. She is currently a law student at the University of Alabama.
Brian Jwa
Undergraduate student
Brian is an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, studying biology on the neuroscience track, with a potential minor in computer science. He plans to continue work in the lab through to graduation and hopes to find similar research in medical school.
Outside of lab and schoolwork, Brian likes to spend time with friends, eat out at as many restaurants as humanly possible, play guitar, sing, dance and play soccer.
Alan Makedon
Undergraduate student
As an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis studying genomics and computational biology, Alan focused his work on the efficacy of neuroprotective agent in neuronal and axonal mouse models with delayed hypoxemia following TBI. Alan is currently a medical student at University of Colorado.
Umang Parikh
Undergraduate student
As an undergraduate at Washington University studying genomics and computational biology, with a minor in finance, Uma was integral to the development of our model of delayed hypoxema following controlled cortical impact. She is currently a medical student at Baylor.
Trey Rhodes
Research Technician
Trey was a research technician in the Friess lab for two years after graduating from Washington University with a BS in neurobiology in May 2017. Trey was integral in developing our long-term behavior assessments as well as the introduction of restraint stress in our model. Trey is a medical student at the University of Colorado.
Kirill Shumilov, PhD
Postdoc Research Associate
Kirill is a postdoctoral research associate in the Friess lab. Originally from Moscow, Kirill grew up in Malaga, Spain. He graduated with a biology degree and a Master’s in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Malaga, Spain. Later, Kirill completed his doctorate studies in morphine addiction in the same institution. He joined the Friess lab in the fall of 2020. He is focusing his effort on uncovering the role of oligodendrocytes after traumatic brain injury.
His interests outside of the lab are jogging, hiking and exploring the national parks in the U.S.
Sangeetha Vadivelu
Research Technician
Sangeetha was a research technician in the Friess lab. She graduated from University of Madras, India with a Masters (MS) in Zoology. Before moving to Washington University, she was research staff at Vanderbilt University Head & Neck cancer and Nephrology programs and spent two years at the University of Missouri. Sangeetha’s research focused on the neuroprotective efficacy of minocycline, as well as changes in gene expression following secondary insults.