Jeffery Olgin, MD: Chief, Division of Cardiology Co-Director, Heart and Vascular Center
Carlin Long: Senior Collaborating Investigator
Di Lang, PhD: Assistant Adjunct Professor
My research aims to understand the membrane nanodomain mediated compartmentalized cellular and molecular functioning and regulation of proteins in the atrial and sinus node physiology and pathology and developing therapeutic strategies targeting the cell cytoarchitectures using animal models, primary cardiomyocytes and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Specifically, I explore the compartmentalized molecular mechanisms of heart rhythm disorders (cardiac arrhythmias) and heart failure from multiple levels: from protein expression, signaling pathway regulation, and sub-cellular localization, protein-protein interaction, to electrical impulse propagation and repolarization of an intact heart. I develop and utilize multiple quantitative cutting-edge high-resolution imaging techniques on tissue, cellular, and microdomain levels as well as develop image processing algorithms.
Junaid Azfal, MBBS, MS: Associate Professional Research
I investigate cellular crosstalk, cell-matrix interactions, and nanotopography of the cardiac microenvironment to understand the molecular and metabolic determinants of fibrosis in the heart.
Pavan Kanagala, MS: Bioinformatics Programmer
Pavan Kanagala obtained his PharmD in JNTUH and completed his Master’s degree in Bioinformatics at IUPUI.His role in the lab is to Build, Development, Implementation, Analysis, Data visualization, and maintenance of computational biology and cardiology multi-omics datasets like Single cell/nuclei sequencing, Spatial, RNA-Seq, GWAS, TCR-Seq and Lead multiple bioinformatics projects, including consulting during experimental design and working closely with experimental researchers to generate/provide analysis reports, project reports and perform requested custom analyses.
Emily Wilson: Lab Manager
Diana Oguntala: Junior Specialist
Diana started working at Olgin Lab in November 2023. Her role consists of maintaining the mice colony, DNA, RNA, and protein extraction, organ harvesting and processing harvested organ tissue for histologic evaluation alongside clinical biospecimen banking. Outside of work, she enjoys reading, exploring different parks, and watching baseball.