People

	Sonia M. Vallabh Principal Investigator Sonia’s scientific mission is to develop a treatment for prion disease. Besides therapeutic development, her research focuses on the biomarkers, models, tools, assays, patient cohorts, and datasets that will enable translation of therapeutics in the clinic. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, under Stuart Schreiber. Sonia also holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She retrained as a scientist after learning in 2011 that she had inherited the PRNP D178N mutation that causes genetic prion disease, and had claimed her mother’s life the year before. Outside of the lab, Sonia also co-runs the scientific nonprofit Prion Alliance.
	Eric Vallabh Minikel Principal Investigator Eric is Sonia’s husband. He followed Sonia into biomedicine to join the quest for a cure. He trained on human genomics in the MacArthur Lab and on chemical biology in the Schreiber Lab and earned his Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard. He blogs at CureFFI.org and tweets as @cureffi.
	Meredith Mortberg Research Associate Meredith is a research associate studying in vivo therapeutics and developing, validating, and applying biochemical assays and biomarkers as tools for drug development. She graduated from University of Texas at Dallas in 2019 with a B.S. in Biochemistry. Previously, she spent two years working as an undergraduate research assistant investigating the effect of stress on memory consolidation in anxiety disorders.
	Juliana Gentile Postdoctoral Associate Juliana is a postdoctoral associate studying prion disease therapeutics and biomarkers in vivo. Prior to working at the Broad Institute, she earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in Dr. Tony Koleske’s Lab at Yale University, where she studied mechanisms of actin regulation in dendritic spines.
	Taylor Corridon Research Associate Taylor is a research associate studying prion biology and PrP-lowering therapy in vivo. She graduated from James Madison University in 2021 with a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Pre-Professional Health studies and a concentration in neuroscience. Previously, she spent two years as an undergraduate research assistant studying the tunable band gap potentials of c3 heme cytochrome mutants in order to work towards creating a conventional semiconductor.
	Vanessa Laversenne Research Scientist Vanessa is a research scientist working on drug development strategies for prion disease. She has studied neurodegenerative diseases for 10 years with the mission of bringing therapeutics one step closer to the patient. Prior joining the Broad, she trained as a biotech engineer in Switzerland and specialized in Alzheimer’s disease and immunotherapy during her Ph.D. studies at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). She moved to the U.S. in 2019 to investigate the mechanisms of aging in Alzheimer’s disease as part of the Mair lab at the Harvard School of Public Health. She joined the Broad institute in 2022 in order to be closer to translational science and do research that will benefit patients in the near future.
	Raja Mohan Gopalakrishnan Postdoctoral Associate Raja is a postdoctoral associate working to understand the normal functions of prion protein and exploring strategies to lower its expression. He graduated in microbiology and completed his PhD on eukaryotic gene expression of enzymes. Before joining the Broad, he completed two years of postdoctoral training at the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Boston, studying the immune and inflammatory changes occurring during acute SIV infection of rhesus macaques.
	Alissa Coffey Project Manager Alissa is a project manager coordinating projects across the Vallabh/Minikel lab and collaborators in order to progress potential treatments for prion disease. She has 10 years of experience as an in vivo neuroscientist. She earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience studying heroin addiction and sleep in the labs of Dr. Sue Grigson and Dr. Jidong Fang at Penn State University College of Medicine. Prior to joining the Broad, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Tom Scammell at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and spent a year working as an in vivo scientist at a small neuroscience startup in Boston.
	Jeannine Frei Research Scientist Jeannine is a research scientist studying therapeutic mechanisms and targets in prion disease, using genetic engineering to identify druggable pathways for PrP lowering. She earned her Ph.D. in developmental neuroscience at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. Before joining the Broad Institute in 2023, she worked as a postdoctoral research scientist at the Hussman Institute for Autism in Baltimore for six years where she studied the role of cell adhesion in neuronal circuit formation and autism spectrum disorder.
	Fiona Serack Research Scientist Fiona is a research scientist working on therapeutic strategies to lower PrP levels in vivo. Before joining the Broad, she trained as a biomedical engineer in Canada, where she earned her Ph.D. at Western University. Fiona’s previous work focused on the development of biomaterials and cell-based strategies for the treatment of peripheral arterial disease. She joined the Broad Institute in 2023, excited to work on translational research that will ultimately bring therapies closer to the patients.
	Nikita Kamath Research Associate Nikita is a research associate working on PrP-lowering therapeutic strategies. She graduated from the University of Mumbai in 2020 with a Bachelor’s in Pharmacy. Prior to joining the Broad, she spent two years at the University of Minnesota where she earned her Master’s in Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Her master’s research project focused on studying the altered localization of the protein PELP1 in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.
	Randy Feeley Administrative Assistant Randy is the Administrative Assistant supporting the Vallabh/Minikel lab, as well as providing support for other departments through the Floater Team. Previously he worked at Wellesley College for 2 years supporting cross-departmental coordination needs for the Office of Development. He earned a B.A in Philosophy and English from Gettysburg College.
	Yuan Lian Computational Associate Yuan is a computational associate providing dynamic computational support to multiple diverse, translationally relevant projects. She graduated from Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool university in 2022 with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics and earned her Master’s in Health Informatics and Data Science from Georgetown University in 2023. She will be working with data ranging from genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics to imaging in Vallabh/Minikel lab.

Lab alumni:

• Andrew G. Reidenbach. Research Scientist 2017-2022. Principal Scientist, Magnet Biomedicine.
• Prof. Cristina Nonato. Visiting scholar 2017-2018. Professor, University of São Paolo.
• Francesca Pavlovici. Intern 2017. PhD Student, University of California Santa Cruz.
• Stacy G. Guzman. Intern 2017. Medical Student, University of Pennsylvania.
• Rishi N. Shah. Intern 2016. Cyber Operations Officer, U.S. Army.