People

David is the principal investigator of the lab and runs the Inflammatory Disease Genetics Clinic in the Department of Medicine. He received his B.A. from Brown University in the Departments of History and Biology. He earned his M.D./Ph.D. from New York University in the laboratory of Dr. Danny Reinberg. He continued with clinical training in the clinician scientist pathway in Internal Medicine at Columbia University and then went on to perform Clinical Genetics training at the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins combined program. David performed his postdoctoral research with Dr. Dan Kastner at the National Institutes of Health.

Sam is an MD/PhD candidate within the New York University Grossman School of Medicine’s Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). His work revolves around elucidating the mechanism of disease in patients with VEXAS and  characterizing the role of the master regulator of the Ubiquitin-Proteasome System (UPS), UBA1, in physiological and disease states.  He received his B.A. in Biochemistry from Columbia University.  He earned his MPhil in Biological Sciences from the University of Cambridge in the laboratory of Prof. George Salmond.  Prior to joining the NYU GSoM MSTP, Sam was an IRTA fellow at the National Institutes of Health where he worked in the group of Dr. Heather Hickman examining mechanisms of adaptive immunity in the setting of viral infection.  In his free time Sam enjoys entrepreneurship, reading and writing science fiction, and caring for his pet chameleon Clive.

Brecca is a  PhD candidate in the Computational Biomedicine program at NYU with Dr. Kelly Ruggles as her co-mentor. Brecca’s current work involves characterizing genetic, transcriptomic, and proteomic markers of autoinflammatory diseases. Brecca graduated from University of Florida with a major in Biomedical Engineering and worked on studying allele specific expression and computational tool development in the lab of Dr. Lauren McIntyre. She enjoys  hiking, rock climbing, and listening to music.

Amy is a MD/PhD student in the NYU Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). Her current work seeks to understand the role of Trisomy 8 in inflammatory conditions and the effects UBA1 variants in development. She graduated from Washington University in Saint Louis with a major in Biology with a focus in Computational Genetics and Genomics and a minor in music. While attending WashU, Amy worked with Dr. Sarah Elgin on identifying gene regulatory motifs in the heterochromatic domain and Dr. Yehuda Ben-Shahar on characterizing the role of miRNAs on behavioral state regulation in flies and bees. In her free time, Amy enjoys taking dance classes, going to concerts in the city, and cooking with friends.

Amy is a PhD student in the Cell Biology program at NYU Vilcek. She earned her B.S. in Cell and Developmental Biology from UC Santa Barbara. She in interested in gaining insight into the molecular mechanisms of VEXAS using cell and mouse models. Outside of performing research, Amy likes to explore new restaurants and cafes, dive into various art projects, and go vintage shopping.

Morgan is a M.S. student in the Biomedical Informatics program at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. With co-mentorship from Dr. Iannis Aifantis, she is applying single cell approaches to identify genetic links between VEXAS and malignant hematopoiesis. After receiving her B.S. in Biology, she joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) within their Center for Epigenetics Research, conducting and analyzing cutting-edge epigenomic profiling assays to elucidate cancer associated alterations of the genome. She continued her computational training at MSKCC in the lab of Dr. Joseph Chan, investigating genetic drivers of plasticity and metastasis in colorectal cancer.

Flore is a post-doctoral fellow, working on bioinformatic approaches to characterize somatic mutations. She received her M.Sc. degree from the multidisciplinary engineering school ESPCI in Paris and her Ph.D. from the embryology lab at the University of Tokyo. Her thesis research revealed the immune influence of maternal cells on the development of the neonatal immune system in mice, combining wet and dry lab. She’s also a jack of all trades in her hobbies, enjoying crafts, games as well as performances and outdoor activities.

Allen is a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory and an attending rheumatologist in the NYU Division of Rheumatology. His work revolves around characterizing the systemic immune response in Sjogren’s Disease using single cell profiling methods. He received his A.B. in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard University. He earned his M.D./Ph.D. from Harvard University during which time he trained in synthetic biology in the laboratory of Dr. Timothy Lu and in human genetics in the laboratory of Dr. Christopher Walsh. He continued clinical training in the Medical Research Track at Weill Cornell / Hospital for Special Surgery, completing residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Rheumatology. During fellowship he trained in immunology in the laboratory of Dr. Alexander Rudensky.

Jerome is a post-doctoral fellow, working on molecular mechanisms of inflammation in trisomy 8 and cellular models of VEXAS. He is MD in France specialized in internal medicine at the Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris, focused on autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseases. He did his PhD in the Frederic Rieux-Laucat’s lab named “Immunogenetics of pediatric autoimmune diseases” Imagine Institute (Paris), focused on the genetic bases and molecular mechanisms of pediatric Evans syndrome, in particular on the JAK/STAT pathway, and made it possible to highlight the SOCS1 deficiency. He is now working on clinical description and therapeutic management of VEXAS syndrome and somatic mutations in complex inflammatory diseases. Outside of science, he loves soccer and spending time with his family and friends.

Maria is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab co-mentored by Dr. Iannis Aifantis. She is working on identifying novel drivers of overlapping inflammatory disease and myeloid malignancy. She received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University and her Ph.D. at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the lab of Dr. Elli Papaemmanuil. During her Ph.D., she established integrative single cell frameworks to study genetic and cellular heterogeneity in IDH-mutated acute myeloid leukemia and defined how cooperative mutations shape treatment response. She also studied the overlap of VEXAS and myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and defined the prevalence, co-mutation patterns, and clinical associations of UBA1 mutations in a large, international cohort of MDS patients.

Mei-Kay is a board-certified genetic counselor and public health professional interested in patient advocacy and health equity. She received her B.S. in Biology and Psychology at the University of Notre Dame before earning her M.S.in Genetic Counseling as well as her M.P.H. in Public Health Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, where she was awarded a fellowship from the New York Mid-Atlantic Consortium (NYMAC) for Genetic and Newborn Screening Services. When not coordinating clinical care or research studies delving into the genetic mechanisms of known or (as of now) undiagnosed disorders of inflammation, she enjoys playing volleyball, finding her next favorite song, and snacking.

Daniela is characterizing novel mutations causing autoinflammatory diseases. She received her B.S. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore county, and was previously an IRTA fellow at the National Institutes of Health. She is currently a genetic counseling student at University of Maryland continuing to work with the Beck lab.

Sachiko has an undergraduate degree in Neuroscience and a concentration in Statistics from Columbia University. She is currently a Research Associate in the Beck Lab establishing the autoimmune inflammatory disease VEXAS in mouse models. Sachiko is also a competitive archer and enjoy shooting on weekends.

Defne is a research associate working on the genetic architecture of autoimmune diseases. She is interested in using large scale data to identify associations between clinical phenotypes and genomic traits. She is also part of the IBD research team at NYU Langone under Dr. Jordan Axelrad. She received a B.S. in computational and systems biology with a concentration in bioinformatics from UCLA, where she completed her thesis work in the diversity of genomic features detectable by exome sequecning in Dr. Noah Zaitlen’s lab. Other than genomics, she completed a minor in art history in UCLA and a certificate program in Art & Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art.

Deborah Hernandez is the lab manager for the Beck Lab. She has extensive experience as a technician and lab manager with Dr. Danny Reinberg first at UMDNJ and then more recently at NYU.