YCMD - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Professor, Department of Pathology
Laura Abriola, M.S., joined YCMD in 2009. Her expertise includes cell, organism, and biochemical-based assay development and optimization as well as high throughput screening activities. Before joining Yale, Laura worked in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries including Cara Therapeutics, Bayer, Novartis, and Johnson and Johnson for 21 years. She developed and performed cell-based and biochemical assays for high throughput screening, lead optimization, and clinical biomarker discovery for a series of biomedical applications including programs in oncology, immunology, and neurology. Since being at YCMD, Laura has developed expertise in whole organism, siRNA, and high content screening. She has worked on several cell-based, biochemical and organism screens resulting in validated hits. Laura specializes in optimization of particularly difficult assays and over the years has learned many approaches to developing robust assays suitable for screening. Laura has a M.S in Biochemistry and Microbiology from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Connecticut.
Job Titles:
- Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical & Environmental Engineering & Physiology
Nalini Dhingra, Ph.D., is a Staff Scientist at YCMD. Nalini received her PhD in biological sciences from Vanderbilt University and pursued postdoctoral research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Nalini has extensive experience in molecular biology, genetics and biochemistry. During her scientific education and career, Nalini made significant contributions to the field of DNA Replication and DNA Damage Response, including dampening of checkpoint pathway and DNA damage induced sumoylation. Nalini is an author on several research and review articles published in various peer-reviewed scientific journals, including PNAS, Nature Communications., Cell Rep., Genes Dev and JBC. Nalini has also mentored many undergraduates and junior graduate students, and she values the importance of effective mentorship.
Job Titles:
- Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology Investigator, Howard Hughes Med Inst Chn Mol Cell & Dev Biology
Job Titles:
- University Provost, Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, and Professor of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Sheila Umlauf, M.S., has been a Biotechnology Research Associate II for the Center for Molecular Discovery on Yale's West Campus since 2013. Sheila's time at Yale covers three Core Facilities (MB&B- Microarray Facility, founding member; Genetics- Genome Facility, founding member; YCMD- Molecular Discovery) with expertise focused on operational improvement. Before joining Yale in 2000, Sheila served as a Special Education Teacher at a residential high school for the severely emotionally disturbed. Prior to that, Sheila helped establish a microarray facility at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. Additional industrial experience includes the Genomics Facility at CuraGen Corporation. Sheila earned a M.S. in Pharmacology from Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University and a B.A. in Chemistry from Bard College.
Job Titles:
- Director of Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair
Job Titles:
- Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Genetics, and Therapeutic Radiology
Yulia Surovtseva, Ph.D. is the Director of the Yale Center for Molecular Discovery. Yulia has an extensive background in molecular biology and biochemistry and over 10 years of experience leading efforts in high throughput assay design, optimization and screening. Yulia received a B.S. in Medical Biology from the Novosibirsk State University and Ph.D in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University. During her scientific education and career, Yulia effectively managed multiple scientific projects and made seminal contributions to the fields of telomere biology, DNA damage response, mitochondrial biology, and gene expression regulation. Yulia's postdoctoral research was supported by two highly competitive fellowships. She is also a recipient of several academic honors and awards, and an author of over 35 articles published in influential peer-reviewed scientific journals.
As the YCMD Director, Yulia supervises a highly trained team and manages multiple programs in the areas of genomic and small molecule screening, target validation and molecule discovery. In addition to supporting basic scientific projects, Yulia is passionate about translating academic research and supporting preclinical proof-of-concept biotechnology programs. Yulia's work is interdisciplinary and highly collaborative, including multiple collaborations with Yale laboratories representing over 20 University departments each year, as well as external groups. Yulia is also responsible for managing YCMD operations, staffing, teaching and outreach activities, infrastructure maintenance and new technology evaluation.