Our lab is a dedicated, well rounded, and fun-loving group – a mix of students and professional scientists from all walks of life.
Lab picture (2025): from left, Dr. Benjamin Freedman, Dr. Benjamin Juliar, Dr. Giulia Spennati, Thomas Vincent, Sophie Blackburn, Arjun Sen, Dr. Raghava Reddy, Ramila Gulieva, Chardai Thomas
Current lab members:
Ramila Gulieva is a research scientist studying signaling pathways in polycystic kidney disease, using human organoid models. She is also part of our genome editing team. Ramila is the first author of a recent paper in Stem Cell Reports, and the illustrator of its beautiful cover (shown above).
Raghava Reddy is a research scientist who is combining iPS cells with CRISPR gene editing to establish laboratory models of human disease and regeneration. His work focuses on signaling pathways relating to cystinosis, a disorder that affects children, as well as cilia disorders.
Arjun Sen is a research scientist studying kidney organoid gene expression patterns over long periods of time. He was recently accepted to graduate school at a top-tier university.
Chardai Thomas is a research scientist studying genetic disorders in kidney organoids, including polycystic kidney disease, cystinosis, and cystic fibrosis.
Ben Juliar is a fourth-year postdoctoral fellow studying the role of apolipoprotein L1 in kidney organoids, and the vasculature in general. He published a first-author paper in Cell Reports in 2024, and is going on to a faculty position.
Giulia Spennati is a postdoctoral fellow studying the effects of glucose on kidney organoids.
Samera Nademi is a postdoctoral fellow studying cystinosis in organoids and mouse models.
Nicole Vo is an Acting Assistant Professor, who is developing techniques to accomplish genome editing in human organoids.
Lab Alumni:
Nelly Cruz was a research scientist and lab manager from 2015-2020. She made major contributions to projects on polycystic kidney disease and high throughput screening. She is currently a senior research scientist at Sloan Kettering in New York City.
Louisa Helms was our first graduate student, from the Molecular Medicine and Mechanisms of Disease (M3D) PhD program, which is a special program focused on therapeutics development. Her project focused on the application of human organoids for genetic kidney disorders and the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on the kidneys. Louisa graduated in four years and is now a business developer.
Yong Kyun Kim was a visiting scholar and nephrologist from South Korea, where he is an Associate Professor. He spent the year in the Freedman lab to learn the new technology of kidney organoid differentiation. He has returned to Korea where he grew the first human kidney organoids in that country.
Stefan Czerniecki completed his Masters degree in Cellular and Physiological Sciences at the University of British Columbia and is currently attending medical school at the University of Washington. While in the lab, Stefan succeeded in miniaturizing and automating the procedure of generating human organoids from pluripotent stem cells. He is now a physician.
Sienna Li was a research scientist in our lab for two years, after undergraduate studies. She helped develop a kidney organoid on chip device, and was a first author of a publication in Nature Communications. Sienna went on to Harvard Medical School for her MD and is now a resident.
Courtney Vishy was our first MD/PhD student. She helped create new types of stem cells for the study of polycystic kidney disease, resulting in a Cell Stem Cell paper. Courtney graduated with her PhD in just three years, which is a record for the lab!
Thomas Vincent was our first PhD student from Bioengineering. He has worked on kidney regeneration from iPS cells.
Sophie Blackburn was our second PhD student from Bioengineering, and our second MD/PhD student. She worked on a project developing methods for long-term culture of kidney organoids.
Images of our lab:
Hard working cell culturists!
Checking out some organoids on the scope.
Lab laser tag (2018)
Halloween party with Ruohola-Baker lab (2017)
