Weiner Laboratory | Lab Members

Principal Investigator Howard L. Weiner	Dr. Howard L. Weiner is the Robert L. Kroc Professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School, Director and Founder of the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center and Co-Director of the Center for Neurologic Diseases at the Brigham & Women's Hospital. Dr. Weiner established the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center at Brigham & Women's Hospital in 2000 which combines clinical evaluation, MRI imaging and immune monitoring and is the first integrated MS center that brings these disciplines to the individual care of the MS patient. Dr. Weiner has pioneered the use of immunotherapy and the drug cyclophosphamide for the treatment of multiple sclerosis and has investigated immune abnormalities in the disease including the role of the innate immune system and regulatory T cells. He has also pioneered the use of the mucosal immune system for the treatment of autoimmune and other diseases, including ALS, Huntington's disease, and stroke. Based on his work vaccines are being tested in multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and most recently in Alzheimer's disease. He is also developing new therapeutic options for Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO). Dr. Weiner is the author of "Curing MS: How Science is Solving the Mystery of Multiple Sclerosis" that chronicles the history of MS, his 30+ years in the research and clinical treatment of MS, and details his "21 point hypothesis" on the etiology and treatment of multiple sclerosis.
Senior Administrative Assistant Kristine E. Vernon	Kristine received a B.A. in Psychology and Biology from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1993. She worked for the ARCND for 10 years. Kristine has been working as administrative assistant for Dr. Weiner for the last 2 years.
Assistant Professor Clare M. Baecher-Allan, PhD
Assistant Professor Murugaiyan Gopal, PhD
Instructor in Neurology Dr. Dan Hu, PhD	Dan Hu obtained her Ph.D. in molecular pathology studying cancer immunotherapy from the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine. She is currently an instructor in neurology in Dr. Weiners group. She studies T cell function in both murine and human systems. Her current research interest is to understand the role of T cells in the pathogenesis of human autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases.
Instructor in Neurology Galina Gabriely, PhD	Dr. Galina Gabriely is a tumor immunologist investigating immune suppression in brain tumors and other types of cancer. She is an instructor in the lab of Dr. Howard Weiner in the Neurology Department at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Galina's main goal is to identify new therapeutic targets for glioblastoma (GBM), the most devastating and currently incurable brain tumor. Her interests are focused on identifying tolerogenic mechanisms that impair anti-tumor immunity and developing approaches to overcome the cancer immune suppression for the therapy of GBM and other types of cancer.
Instructor in Neurology Laura Cox, PhD	Laura Cox, Ph.D. is an instructor at the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases. She began her career in anaerobic bacteriology and was trained and board certified as a medical technologist, working for two years as a clinical microbiologist. She obtained her PhD at NYU in Dr. Martin Blaser’s lab, where her work demonstrated that early-life antibiotic treatment results in lasting changes in metabolism. Laura joined the lab of Howard Weiner and is now investigating the influence of intestinal microbiota on immunity and neurodegenerative diseases, including multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease. She was recently awarded the Alzheimer's Women's Movement Award as well as a fellowship from the Women's Brain Initiative at Brigham & Women's Hospital for her studies of sex-specific interactions between the microbiota and pathology in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease.
Instructor in Neurology Rafael Rezende, PhD	Dr. Rezende has a PharmD degree, MSc and PhD degrees in Biological Sciences with emphasis in Pharmacology by the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. In 2012 he finished his first post-doctoral fellowship in Immunology, also in Brazil, and joined the Weiner's lab for his second postdoctoral fellowship. Dr. Rezende is currently an Instructor in Neurology and his primary goal is to understand the involvement of gamma-delta (??) T cells, a subtype of T lymphocytes that express the ?? T cell receptor (TCR) instead of the conventional alpha-beta (??) TCR, in modulating the gut-brain axis in the context of neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Instructor in Neurology Shirong Liu, PhD	Dr. Shirong Liu got his Bachelor of Medicine in Clinical Medicine at Jiangxi Medical College (Nanchang University), M.Sc. in Immunology at Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, both in China, and Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) in Neuroimmunology at Saarland University in Germany. He investigated the innate immune toll-like receptor signalling in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease during his Ph.D. thesis work. He joined Weiner lab in 2012 as a postdoctoral fellow and was promoted to Instructor in Neurology in 2016. He is currently investigating the host-microbe interactions in the gut and how such interactions contribute to immunological diseases in the central nervous system and in the periphery. His goal is to establish mechanisms of which host defines its commensals and the application of these mechanisms in the treatment of diseases.
Clinical Fellow Amir Hadi Maghzi, MD	Dr. Hadi is a board-certified neurologist who is currently pursuing a clinician-scientist development fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Howard Weiner. He has a longstanding interest in multiple sclerosis and has published on various aspects of the disease since he started in 2006. He is currently performing basic research in understanding the gut-brain axis in MS.
Postdoctoral Fellow Anu Paul, PhD	Anu received her Bachelor in Microbiology and her Masters in Biotechnology from Bharathiyar University in South India. She then joined the Wellcome trust research laboratory at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India and worked with Dr. Gagandeep Kang. Her Ph.D. research under Dr. Kang's mentorship was in the faculty of Biomedical Sciences. Her research focused on immune responses of oral rotavirus vaccination and factors that may affect response to vaccines among Indian infants. She joined the Weiner lab at ARCND in 2014 as a post-doctoral fellow and her research mainly focused on identifying and validating circulating miRNA as biomarker in Multiple Sclerosis. She is currently working as the research laboratory manager for the CLIMB Biorepository.
Postdoctoral Fellow Belinda Kaskow, PhD	Dr. Belinda Kaskow is a Research Scientist in the Baecher-Allan and Weiner labs, where she studies the genetics and function of the immune system in neurologic disorders and cancer. She is currently investigating the role of regulatory T and B cells in Multiple Sclerosis and identifying the genes involved in resistance or susceptibility to suppression. She received her Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Western Australia
Postdoctoral Fellow Gislane de Oliveira, PhD	Dr. De Oliveira received her Ph.D. in Basic and Applied Immunology from the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil, where she studied the immunoregulatory functions of mesenchymal stromal cells in MS patients. She finished her Postdoc in São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil, where she evaluated the intestinal dysbiosis in MS patients. Before joining the Weiner's lab, she coordinated the Microbiome Study Group in School of Health Sciences Dr. Paulo Prata (FACISB), Brazil. Actually, she is a Research Fellow in the Weiner's lab, where she is studying the relationship between microbiome and leaky gut in MS animal models.
Postdoctoral Fellow Hadi Abou El-Hassan, MD	Prior to joining the Weiner lab, Hadi completed his BSc Biology and medical training at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon. He is interested in studying central and peripheral immune responses in traumatic brain injury and glioblastoma. In parallel, he enjoys doing bioinformatics and coding.
Postdoctoral Fellow Juliana Lopes, PhD	Dr. Lopes has a PharmD degree, M.S. and Ph.D. in Biosciences from Sao Paulo State University, Brazil. She did a postdoc in cancer biology at Michigan State University before joining the Weiner's laboratory in 2018. Her current research is focused on microglial cell modulation through nasal administration of antibodies and microglia-derived peptides that induce immunological tolerance.
Postdoctoral Fellow Mai Fujiwara, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow Panagiota Kolypetri, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow Selma Boulenouar, PHD
Postdoctoral Fellow Thais Moreira, PhD	Dr Thais Moreira has a degree in Nutrition, MSc and PhD in Immunology with emphasis on gut mucosa (Faria's Lab, UFMG, Brazil). During her PhD, Dr. Moreira has joined two other laboratories as a visitor scientist; Fontoura's lab, UTSouthwestern, Texas, USA and Nagy's Lab, University of Debrecen, Hu. Dr. Moreira has then joined Dr. Weiner's lab in the summer of 2016 as a post-doctoral research fellow. Her main goal is to study the immunological events that takes place in the gut mucosa related to gut homeostasis and oral tolerance. Dr. Moreira is also working in many studies involving gut-microbiome-brain axis as well as gut mucosa immunomodulation in food allergy.
Visiting Postdoc Caroline Wasén, PhD	Caroline Wasén is a postdoctoral associate in the Weiner Lab, where she studies the gut microbiota and its function in Alzheimer's disease. She received her Ph.D. in medicine from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, where she studied the impact of smoking on T cell co-stimulatory receptors in rheumatoid arthritis. She received her M.S. in pharmacy from the University of Gothenburg.
Visiting Postdoc Luísa Lemos, PhD	Dr. Lemos has a Biology degree, MSc and PhD degrees in Biological Sciences with emphasis in Immunology by the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). During her PhD, Dr. Lemos was focused in understanding the gut-brain axis in food allergy. Dr. Lemos is currently a research trainee at Dr. Weiner's lab and she is interested in the regulatory mechanisms to induce tolerance in several diseases.
Master's student Iyabo Erinkitola	In pursuing her Master's degree in Biology, Iyabo's thesis project works to reveal aspects of the gut-brain axis in Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Her research interests include neuroimmunological/neurodegenerative diseases and glial physiology. She is working towards a career as a physician, intending to contribute innovative therapies to the field of neurology. Iyabo is a Georgia native, and outside of the lab, she works with mixed media on large scale canvas and explores New England!
Lab Manager Dvora Ghitza
Technical Research Assistant Bruna Tatematsu	Bruna has a degree in Neuroscience from Wheaton College, Massachusetts. She joined the Weiner Lab to study the fundamentals of autoimmune disease development. Her work in the Weiner lab includes a mixture of lab management and a variety of technical laboratory procedures. Currently, she is part of a research where mouse models are used to understand the role that gamma-delta T cells play in the gut microbiota and brain.
Technical Research Assistant Fermisk Saleh
Technical Research Assistant Fyonn Dhang
Technical Research Assistant Gabriela Molica	Gabriela is a technical research assistant working with Dan Hu on her research. Her current work in the Weiner Lab deals with MS and human T-cells. She is a recent graduate of UMass Amherst with a BS in Psychology/Neuroscience.
Technical Research Assistant Junning Case	Jun received her MS degree in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry from Wesleyan University. She is a senior technical research assistant in the Baecher-Allan and Weiner Labs, where she maintains lab business and performs experiments for several ongoing projects in the lab. Her current interests lie in investigating the functional role of T cell subsets in multiple sclerosis.
Technical Research Assistant Katherine Hanus	Kate is a technical research assistant to Dr. Clare Baecher-Allan. Through her work on human T cells, she hopes to help elucidate the role of regulatory immune cells in neurologic disorders such as MS. She recently received her BS in Biology from Boston College.
Technical Research Assistant Linqing Sun
Technical Research Assistant Lucien Garo
Technical Research Assistant Mikaela Collins
Sponsored Staff Eduardo De Castro	Eduardo Lobo is a medical student from Brazil. Since the beginning of college, he has been part of different activities, such as social projects involving public health, groups that discussed about medicine and technology and also was a project director for the medical student's junior enterprise, Medic jr. Recently, Eduardo joined the Weiner's lab as a research trainee. He is involved in researches that investigate the neuroimmunology interactions and cell differentiation in the gut. His goal is to better understand the basics of research; as planning and executing a project, analyzing the data and writing a manuscript. Together, those knowledges will be used to impact the healthcare system and perform a better medical practice.
Sponsored Staff Eva Torrico	As part of her master's studies in Neuroscience at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), Eva came to the Weiner Lab to work as a research trainee with Dr. Boulenouar. With a special interest in Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs), their research focuses on dietary impacts on gut immunology as well as mechanisms of mucosal tolerance and anti-CD3 treatments.
Sponsored Staff Julia Mayrink	Julia Mayrink is a medical student at Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil. As a graduate student she is involved in a variety of internships in research, clinic and surgery programs. Julia is also a consultant in a Medical Junior Enterprise (Medic Jr.) which gives her the opportunity to work in management of healthcare services. She recently started as a research trainee at Dr. Weiner’s lab working with Dr. Rafael Rezende who has the goal to elucidate the intrinsic relations between immunology and neuroscience. As an enthusiastic and empathic person, Julia is working on becoming an innovative physician, using her knowledge to discover new approaches and technologies to change people’s life.
Sponsored Staff Paulien Kaptein	In pursuing her master's degree in Life Science Research at Leiden University (Netherlands), Paulien developed a strong interest in the role of dysfunctional immune cells in promoting human disease. As a research trainee under the supervision of Dr. Boulenouar, she is working on the effect of nutrition and anti-CD3 treatment on intestinal tolerance and immunity.