Current members Sam Modlin Project Scientist Sam joined LPCDRP in 2015 and received his M.S. in Biological and Medical Informatics in 2017. His graduate research focused on comparative and functional genomics and his thesis focused on elucidating the drivers and sites of variation in DNA methylation patterns of M. tuberculosis clinical isolates. He was subsequently hired on as a Project Scientist in the lab, where he has worked since, supervising graduate students, writing grants, manuscripts, and translating findings into patent-pending inventions. His current research focuses on using long-read DNA sequencing to study M. tuberculosis clinical strain diversity and heterogeneity, with a focus on DNA methylation and large sequence polymorphisms that influence clinical bacterial phenotypes Derek Conkle-Gutierrez Graduate research assistant - P.H.D student Derek joined the LPCDRP lab in 2017 when entering the SDSU Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Masters program (graduated in 2019). He is currently in the Public Health Joint Doctoral Program at SDSU and UCSD, under the mentorship of Dr. Valafar. Derek studies drug resistance and diversifying mechanisms of M. tuberculosis using long and short read DNA sequencing data. These mechanisms include heterogeneous loss of function mutations, gene conversion, and DNA methylation. :Graduate Student Afif Elghraoui Graduate research assistant - P.H.D candidate Nachiket Thosar Graduate research assistant - Master's Nachiket joined the LPCDRP lab in August 2020 while being enrolled at SDSU in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Masters program. Currently working in the lab on drug resistance mechanisms, genomic diversity and whole genome sequencing of Mtb. Theron James Graduate research assistant - Master's Bria Gorman Graduate research assistant - Master's Maryam Ahmadi Jeshvaghane Graduate research assistant - Master's Maryam received her bachelor’s degree in Industrial and management engineering with a minor in statistics in 2019. She is currently studying her master’s degree in Big Data Analytics program at SDSU. She has been a member of the lab since April 2021 and her current research involves applying machine learning methodologies to find the reasons behind anomalous DNA methylation pattern in mycobacterium tuberculosis. mahmadijeshvag6700@sdsu.edu: Tristan Jang Graduate research assistant - Master's Reina Hastings Undergraduate research assistant Reina joined the LPCDRP lab in 2023 while working on her B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology with minors in chemistry and computer science. Before joining Dr. Faramarz’s lab, she was a research assistant in an Alzheimer’s research wet lab under the San Diego State Research Foundation. Since becoming a part of the LPCDRP, she is focused on developing her dry lab and programming skills. Mahshid Fallahpour Graduate research assistant - P.H.D student Mahshid joined LPCDRP in 2023 and received her M.S. in Medical Biotechnology in 2017. Her graduate research focused on comparative and functional genomics and her thesis focused on developing a Recombinant Antibodies Array for the simultaneous detection of multiple antigens in human sera specifically HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis. Mahshid has just started her graduate studies as a Ph.D. student in public Health, Global Health and she is one of the wet lab members. Alumni Anu Amallraja Amy Goodmanson Seema Patel Calvin Kim Emma Westin Logan Fink Matt Onorato Alyssa Zlotnicki Cody Price Christopher Morrissey Scott Mitchell Deepika Gunasekaran Sarah Ramirez-Busby Cassidy Robinhold Danny Oh Alexa Barnes Emma Bishop Ragavi Shamugan Monica Espinoza Postdoc research fellow Anna Scavo Graduate research assistant - Master's Anastassia Frenzel Undergraduate research assistant Nicholas Middelberg Undergraduate research assistant Ashley Swing Graduate research assistant - P.H.D student