Interventional Genomics
in Rare Diseases
Principal Investigator
A rare Indonesian with a Dutch directness,
a Canadian heart &
an American love of fried chicken
Dwi U. Kemaladewi
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Div. of Genetic and Genomic Medicine, Dept. of Pediatrics
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Postdoctoral Fellow/Research Associate (2012-2019)
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
Ph.D. in Human Genetics (2007-2012)
Leiden University Medical Center, Netherlands
BSc in Life Sciences (2003-2007)
Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen, Netherlands
Pitt Pediatrics | PubMed | X
Research Staff
Marie Johnson
Lab Manager (2020 - now)
B.S, Biology
Penn State University
Marie works on:
Every project Dwi came up with (and fixing every problem Dwi created)
Marie collects:
Fun, colorful glasses (and leaves them everywhere!)
Ruvi Ranatunga
Research Technician (2023 - now)
B.S, Neuroscience
Univ. of Pittsburgh
Ruvi works on:
Functional assays in disease mouse models
Ruvi is:
A big Steelers fan, period
Xuejun (XJ) Zhao
Research Scientist (2023 - now)
XJ works on:
Therapeutic window of intervention in LAMA2-CMD
XJ is:
The only cat person in the team (why oh why?!)
Postgraduate researchers
Oluwaseun (Seun) Akinyele
Postdoctoral Fellow (2021 - now)
PhD, Pharmacology
University of Aberdeen
Seun works on:
Therapeutic genetics and disease modeling in Snyder-Robinson Syndrome
Things Seun would say:
Serie A is "nae bad", but Premier League is way better!
Yonne Menezes
Postdoctoral Fellow (2022 - now)
PhD, Immunology and Biotechnology
Univ. Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil
Yonne works on:
Immunophenotyping assessments in disease mouse models
Yonne's secret to success:
Sending good vibes #GV
John Wang
Genetics Fellow (2021, 2022, 2024 -now)
MD, PhD. New York University Grossman School of Medicine
John works on:
Patient-specific myelination model
John may or may not:
Silently "diagnose" what's wrong with his lab mates!
Graduate students
Annie Infancia Arockiaraj
PhD student (2019 - now)
MS, Human Genetics
University of Pittsburgh
Annie works on:
Compensatory mechanism of human LAMA1 in LAMA2-CMD
Annie was voluntold to:
Drink powdered coffee (and admittedly liked it!)
Previous Lab Members:
JiaQi Cheng Zhang
PhD student (2020 - now)
MSc, Molecular Life Sciences
Radboud University, Netherlands
JiaQi works on:
Development of a mini-and-mighty system for therapeutic gene modulation
Things JiaQi would do:
Be in Pittsburgh, Hawaii, and Los Angeles within a week! YOLO!
Anushe Munir
Research Technician (2020 - 2021)
PhD student (2022 - now)
MS, Human Genetics
University of Pittsburgh
Anushe works on:
Genetic diversity in congenital muscular dystrophy
Anushe's unpopular opinion:
The brain is way cooler than the skeletal muscles!
Summer students:
Salah Daghlas (2019)
Regan Brodine (2021, 2022)
Mallika Khati (2023)
Undergraduate students:
Caleb Kim (2019-2020)
Veronica Alday (2019-2021)
Alexander Azar (2021-2022)
Research technicians:
Cynthia Francis (2019-2020)
Rotation students:
Alayna Holderman (2020)
Megan Perez (2022)