Our Research

The long-term vision of the Iyer Stem Cell & Regeneration Lab is to exploit advances in stem cell biology and emerging engineering technologies to develop personalized therapeutic strategies for neural repair.  We focus on using human pluripotent stem cells to determine how regional and phenotypic specificity drives neural circuit formation, degeneration, and regeneration in the spinal cord and beyond.

News & Upcoming Events

March 2025

March 3, 2025 

We are growing! We’re excited to welcome Nicole Teaney to the lab as a PhD student! Nicole joins us with a background in Neuroscience from Stonehill College and brings valuable experience from her time as a research technician at Boston Children’s Hospital, where she worked with patient-derived iPSCs to model neurological diseases. We’re thrilled to have her on board helping us develop models for neurodegenerative disease. 

January 2025

January 13, 2025 

Warm welcomes! Neuroscience PhD student Lina Oh joins us for her third research rotation. 

January 6, 2025 

We are growing! We’re excited to welcome several new members to the lab! Undergraduates Rola Kazaer and Yan Kolpakov (Biomedical Engineering) and Lucy Moss (Biology) are joining us to contribute to our ongoing research efforts by Emily and Zhixin. We’re also thrilled to have Niyera Mitchell and Ishaan Tiwari join as lab technicians, supporting our gene editing and organoid projects. 

December 2024

December 13, 2024

We are celebrating! Congratulations to India on winning  a Tufts Graduate Student Research Competition award! She will be using the funds to develop scalable methods to generate Schwann cells, the glial cells of the peripheral nervous system.

December 11, 2024

We are celebrating! Congrats to Emily for receiving a travel award from Tufts' Dean's office to attend the 2024 BMES Meeting!

November 2024

November 22, 2024

We are celebrating! Congrats to Farsin and Kara on winning  Tufts Undergraduate Research Funds! They will be using these funds to develop gene edited cell lines for reporter expression.

October 2024

October 23-26, 2024 

BMES 2024: Nisha, Zhixin, Natalie and Emily will be attending the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting 2024 in Baltimore, MD.  Everyone has a packed schedule!  Nisha is session chair for Cell Engineering Thursday morning. Natalie and Emily are presenting posters on Thursday and Friday respectively. Zhixin is presenting her first oral presentation on Saturday afternoon! We are so excited to see great science and friends!

September 2024

September 25, 2024

Milestone achieved! And more!  Masters student Natalie Parker passed her original research proposal in preparation for her thesis. Natalie also received a travel award from Tufts' Dean's office to attend the 2024 BMES Meeting in October. Congrats Natalie!

September 19-20, 2024 

SfB Northeast: Nisha and Emily will be attending the Society for Biomaterials Northeast Symposium.  Nisha is a co-organizer and Emily is presenting her first oral presentation as a PhD student!

September 16, 2024

Warm welcomes! Neuroscience PhD student Nicole Teaney joins us for her first research rotation. 

September 13, 2024 

We are growing! We’re excited to welcome Oluwadamilola (Dami) Kolawole and India Cabot as new Master's students in the lab! Dami joins us from the University of Maine, bringing valuable experience in genetic analyses for ecological applications, which will support our gene editing efforts. India, a former Jumbo, is part of the dual Master's program in Biomedical Engineering and Innovation Management, with prior clinical and bioprocessing experience. 

September 6, 2024

It's NOA Day!  Nisha has received a New Innovator Award (DP2) from NINDS through the NIH HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative! The DP2 mechanism supports highly creative early-career investigators proposing bold, innovative research with the potential for high impact. Our project will focus on developing novel stem cell tools for region-specific in vitro models to better understand and treat pain. We're thrilled to begin this new chapter of research!  

July 2024

July 22, 2024

STEEM GRC: Emily will be attending and presenting a poster at the Gordon Research Conference for Signal Transduction by Engineered Extracellular Matrices this week!

July 15, 2024

We are celebrating! Congrats to Brandon Hernandez Pacheco, who successfully defended his master's thesis today! We are so proud of this accomplishment and huge milestone for Brandon and the lab!

July 1, 2024

Warm welcomes! High school students Annika Ziegler and Alessio Polito join the lab as part of the Tufts TUBERS program . 

June 2024

June 21, 2024

Warm welcomes! MD/PhD student Hudson Kussie joins for his first research rotation before starting at Tufts Medical School. 

June 11, 2024

Milestone achieved!  PhD students Emily Pallack and Patrick Flynn passed their qualifying exams. Congrats on this important milestone!

April 2024

April 30, 2024

We are celebrating! Congrats to Justin Wang for passing his senior honors thesis defense with distinction! Justin has been spearheading a collaboration between the Iyer and Timko labs to use nanomaterials to improve neuronal maturation. Justin's next stop is New York University for medical school!

March 2024

March 27, 2024

We are celebrating! Undergraduate researcher Farsin Syed was accepted to the Laidlaw Undergraduate Research and Leadership Program! As a Laidlaw Scholar, Farsin will spend this summer working on independent gene editing projects in human stem cells, and next summer abroad developing her leadership skills outside the lab. Congrats Farsin!

January 2024

January 24, 2024

Funding for exciting research! The Iyer Lab received a First Look Award from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) Women’s Health Initiative last summer to develop new stem cell tools to model women's pelvic pain. Read about it in Tufts Now!

January 10, 2024

We are celebrating AGAIN! Congratulations to Natalie on winning  a Tufts Graduate Student Research Competition award! She will be using the funds to develop hybrid differentiation strategies to efficiently generate region-specific neurons.