Welcome to Leila Lesanpezeshki – a new postdoctoral fellow who joins us from Texas Tech.
Leila’s PhD focused on developing phenotypic assays to study the neuromuscular function of C. elegans. She developed a 3D burrowing assay using a hydrogel to rapidly assess neuromuscular health in C. elegans disease models. In a NASA funded project, she collaborated on sending worms to space to understand the effect of microgravity on muscle strength during spaceflight using a microfluidic technology developed in her PhD lab. As an engineer at Zhen Lab, she will be leveraging her microfluidic knowledge to develop new assays to understand how neural connectivity affects the behavior and neuromuscular function.