COUNTER-DISEASE ENGINEERING
SHEMESH LAB
Team Members
Or Shemesh , PhD
Principal Investigator
Or is now pursuing making tools for the diseased brain, with an emphasis on neurodegeneration. He won numerous awards, including the NIH Trailblazer Award for Early Stage Investigators, the Chorafas Prize by the Karolinska institute, the Simons foundation, and has already been funded by the Reeves Foundation for blindness research, the NIH for Alzheimer’s research and the Pitt Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center for tauopathy research. In Counter-Disease Engineering, Or is building and leading a diverse, multicultural, impact driven and FUN group.
Sandeep Singh, PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar (HUJI)
Sandeep investigates how microorganisms contribute to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, using expansion microscopy (ExM) to visualize their interactions with neural tissues at nanoscale resolution with a focus on gender-specific mechanisms and also to identify novel therapeutic targets tailored to these differences.
Chaoming Zhou , MD
Research Scientist (PITT)
Chaoming has worked at the University of Pittsburgh for more than twenty years in the departments of pharmacology, plastic surgery, and physical medicine & rehabilitation. She possesses a broad range of knowledge and expertise with laboratory techniques, especially in molecular biology, protein chemistry, and cell signaling.
Esther Silberberg
PhD Student (HUJI)
Esther is working on establishing a definitive correlation between pathogenic infection and Parkinson's Disease pathogenesis, and plans on diving deep into the causative mechanisms of this correlation. Given the widely known idiom “knowing the sickness is half the cure”, she hopes to uncover potential mechanisms of manipulating this process.
Alexandra Kior
Graduate Student (HUJI)
Alexandra works on applying Expansion Microscopy (ExM) to study neurodegenerative diseases, with a current focus on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Her projects involve processing human brain and spinal cord tissues. By labeling specific proteins, including viral markers, she aims to investigate pathological changes at high resolution. Her work integrates histological preparation, fluorescence microscopy, and image analysis to explore cellular and molecular alterations underlying neurodegeneration.
Zena Azem
Graduate Student (HUJI)
Zena's work in the lab involves working with genetically encoded nanoparticles. The ability to manipulate these nanoparticles at the genetic level opens up a plethora of possibilities in the fields of medicine and biotechnology, making Zena's contributions to the lab both crucial and impactful.
Vanesa R. Hyde
LAB ALUMNI
Vanesa's projects previously focused on the infectious etiology of neurodegenerative diseases - namely Alzheimer's disease. Using primarily expansion microscopy and cell culture modeling, her work demonstrated that Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV-1) triggers tau phosphorylation via the cGAS-STING pathway in the brain.
Currently, Vanesa is pursuing her PhD in neuroscience at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Claire MacGibbon
LAB ALUMNI
Claire graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2023 with a BSc in emergency medicine with a minor in chemistry. She served as a research assistant in the summer of 2021 where she aided in optimizing the expansion microscopy protocol during the initial stages of the lab. Claire currently works as a paramedic. She intends to apply to medical school in the upcoming cycle.
Krishnashis Chatterjee , PhD
Postdoctoral Scholar (PITT)
Krish is a postdoctoral research associate in the Counter Disease Engineering group. He has always been fascinated by the complexities and mysteries of human brain and his work in the lab is focused on interdisciplinary research, at the intersections of biology, physics, and engineering. Presently, Krish is leading projects focused on building genetically encoded nanotechnological tools (with applications in cancer therapy and super resolution imaging) and gene therapy for glial cells in brain with post baccalaureates and undergraduate students working under his supervision.
Juan R. Fernandez
Research Scientist (PITT)
Juan Fernandez is a University of Pittsburgh post-baccalaureate. He is presently working on projects focused on understanding neurodegenerative disease causality and mechanism by way of expansion microscopy for enhanced tissue visualization.
Juan leads his own project which explores the role of the brain microbiome and Alzheimer’s Disease pathologies. He has also collaborated with Vanesa Hyde in exploring the role of pathogenic infection in disease progression and understand the role of pathological tau.
Elie Marciano
Graduate Student (HUJI)
Elie's work centers on genetically encoded intracellular nanoparticles, investigating how cells can be programmed to build their own metallic structures. This autonomous biomineralization opens exciting opportunities for next-generation imaging. Using cellular and animal models, he explores how these particles form and behave within living tissues. Ultimately, the project aims to advance innovative contrast strategies for biomedical imaging.
Zaina Nazeh Natur
Graduate student (HUJI)
Zaina is a Master's student in Pharmacy with research interests in neuroscience. Curious about the unanswered questions of the brain. Zaina currently works on research focused on identifying potential pathogenic mechanisms and biological factors that contribute to neurodegenerative and neurological diseases, with a particular focus on schizophrenia. Her work involves studying how different molecular and cellular processes may influence disease development and progression. In addition, Zaina is working on other projects related to drug delivery, exploring strategies to improve the effectiveness and targeting of therapeutic compounds.
Sarah Seman
LAB ALUMNI
Currently, Sarah is pursuing her PhD in biomedical engineering at the Ohio State University. Her work focuses on sarcoidosis as she designs a 3D disease model based on an earlier 2D version. Sarah’s research goals focus on using an engineering-minded problem solving approach to solve biological challenges.
Greg Fisher, PhD
LAB ALUMNI
Greg Fisher is a shared co-member of the Dr. Or Shemesh laboratory in the neurobiology department at the University of Pittsburgh and the Dr. Bruce Armitage laboratory in the chemistry department of Carnegie Mellon University. He collaborates on projects involving adult brain cultures composed of neurons, glia and microglia.