Members

Staff Members

  • Dario Sirabella, PhD

    • Associate Research Scientist; Manager, Differentiation

    Dario has a longstanding experience with stem cells. During his PhD at the University of Rome, Italy, he extensively studied skeletal muscle-derived stem cells and fetal vessel-associated stem cells, with particular focus on multipotency and differentiation into multiple mesodermal cell types. During his postdoctoral work at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NY, he investigated specific molecular mechanisms involved in the signaling cascade that controls myogenic differentiation. Later, he became interested in pluripotency and started working on reprogramming skeletal muscle stem cells and in their transdifferentiation into cardiac cells.

    Dario joined the Columbia's Stem Cell Core Facility in 2012 as head of the cardiac section, a key resource for providing standardized preparations of human pluripotent stem cells-derived cardiac lineages. He is now also responsible of training, reprogramming and on the differentiation of hiPSC/hESC into motor neurons and skeletal muscle.

  • Hemanta Sarmah, PhD

    • Postdoctoral Research Scientist

    My research interests broadly span the field of Stem Cell Biology and Developmental biology. In May 2020, I graduated from Prof. Tadashi Yamamoto’s lab at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan. My thesis dissertation involved understanding eukaryotic mRNA decay during early embryonic development in mice from molecular and physiological standpoints. The difficulty of using mice to study gastrulation and pre-gastrulation events made me come to terms with ES/iPS cell biology and its immense potential to model embryonic development, in-vitro. Thus began my journey into the field of Stem Cell Biology that got more intense and fascinating after I joined Dr. Mori’s lab at the Division of Pulmonary Medicine at Columbia University for my postdoctoral research. My work entailed a deeper understanding of cellular reprograming in context of large animals such as swine and baboons. In addition to ES/iPS cell biology, my research also involved targeted KI of swine iPSCs and fibroblasts using CRISPR-Cas9 technology.

    As part of the Columbia Stem Cell Core, my current research involves exhaustive application of CRISPR-Cas based genome editing in pluripotent stem cells. Our research method relies on a two-pronged approach – (1) Scouting for mutations, SNPs, and other forms of allelic variations in a specific disease model and correcting the potential driver using gene-editing technology and (2) using reverse genetics approaches to generate various disease models. Furthermore, we take keen interest in the biology of pluripotent stem cells and ways in which can be tuned to recapitulate a state of early embryonic development.

    Besides work, I enjoy reading popular science, outdoor runs, and playing cricket.

  • Ekaterina Lebayle, MA

    • Technician B

    I received a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Penza State University, Russia, and a second Bachelor's degree in Physiological Psychology from Hunter College, New York. During my undergraduate career, I have been working at the Neurobehavioral Lab at Hunter College under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Lewis studying Substance Use Disorder. To expand my research experience, I joined the NIH Blueprint Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through the Undergraduate Research Education Experiences (BP-ENDURE) Program and investigated mechanisms of attention, during a Summer Undergraduate Research Program at NYU. To pursue my interest in studying neural mechanisms of psychiatric disorders, I then joined Dr. Mohammed Milad's lab in the Department of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and studied mechanisms of fear learning and fear extinction in PTSD and anxiety-related disorders using brain imaging and behavioral measures.

    While attending the Columbia Access Neuroscience event, I met Barbara and became fascinated by the field of stem cells. Upon completing a three-month internship at the Columbia Stem Cell Core, I realized I wanted to know more about these powerful cells. I recently joined the Stem Cell Core team, and I am responsible for fibroblast derivation from skin biopsies, iPSC derivation, maintenance and reprogramming, neuronal differentiation, and gene editing.

    I am planning to pursue a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and study neural mechanisms of psychiatric and neurological disorders using stem cell models and human brain imaging techniques.

    I am a student of a yoga master Sri Dharma Mittra, and in my free time I enjoy practicing and teaching yoga.