Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI)
Showing 1-10 of 20 Results
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Neetu Saini
Postdoctoral Scholar, Stem Cell Transplantation
BioMy research interests focus on translational human T-cell immunology, with an emphasis on regulatory T cells (Tregs) and their therapeutic potential in restoring immune tolerance and tissue homeostasis. I am particularly interested in engineering FOXP3-programmed CD4⁺ T cells as a stable and functional alternative to conventional Tregs, especially in inflammatory settings where endogenous Tregs may be unstable or dysfunctional. My work integrates gene-editing approaches, immunophenotyping, and human organoid systems to study how these engineered cells interact with epithelial and stem cell compartments, with a focus on mechanisms of tissue repair and immune–epithelial crosstalk in barrier tissues such as the intestine. Moving forward, I aim to advance next-generation cell therapies by combining insights from T-cell biology, tissue biology, and disease modeling to develop durable and clinically relevant strategies for treating immune-mediated and epithelial barrier disorders.
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Rachel Schuck
Postdoctoral Scholar, Psychiatry
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research interests center on improving support services for autistic individuals—particularly by incorporating feedback from the autistic/autism community—and increasing access to high quality supports. I am also interested in assessing attitudes toward neurodiversity and promoting understanding of neurodiversity amongst the general population in the hopes of improving quality of life for neurodivergent people and their families.
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Shailja
Postdoctoral Scholar, Radiological Sciences Laboratory
BioShailja is an engineer and computational scientist interested in the modeling of the human brain to study neurological diseases and guide neurosurgeries. As a Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute’s postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Jennifer A. McNab and Prof. Josef Parvizi, she investigates tractography-based neurosurgical targeting. She is interested in mapping the whole brain structural connectivity network from diffusion MRI to functional connectivity in the human brain. Shailja received her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara and BS from Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Her doctoral research is on Reeb graphs for modeling white matter fibers in the human brain, which was awarded the Winifred and Louis Lancaster Best PhD Dissertation at UC Santa Barbara.
