Present Lab Members
Mustafa Khokha / Professor with Tenure of Pediatrics
Emily Mis / Associate Research Scientist
Emily received her undergraduate degree from Fairfield University, where she majored in Biology with a minor in Music. As an undergrad, she worked in the lab of Phyllis Braun, studying the roles of EGCGs in green tea on the formation of biofilms. She then completed a Master’s in Biology at NYU, working in the lab of Patrick Eichenberger on spore coat protein dynamics during B. subtilis sporulation. After working in the lab of Fabio Piano on C. elegans 3’UTRs with Marco Mangone, and identifying interactors of the mel-28 protein with Anita Fernandez, Emily joined the lab of Scott Weatherbee at Yale in 2009 and completed a PhD on the role of Xylt1 during chondrocyte maturation in mouse. Emily joined the Khokha Lab in 2014 to elucidate the genetic causes of congenital heart defects. In 2017, she became the Basic Science Research Coordinator of the Pediatric Genomics Discovery Program, overseeing the functional characterization of genes identified in patients with a wide spectrum of congenital birth defects.
Maura Lane / Research Associate
Cynthia Zerillo / Research Assistant
Hue Tran / Lab Assistant
Larisa Lozovatsky / Research Assistant
Micheal Slocum / Research Assistant
Salimata Diarra / Research Affilate
Salimata's academic and research journey as an international fellow is characterized by her pursuit of excellence and collaboration across borders! Her dedication to neurology, particularly in investigating rare neurological disorders like hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) and epilepsy, showcases her commitment to understanding and addressing unmet medical needs. Starting from her undergraduate studies in biology at LKDK in Mali, she completed her MD degree from the University of Science, Technique, and Technology of Bamako (USTTB) before delving into neurology residency at the teaching hospital of point “G” in Bamako. Her thesis work on the clinical and genetic spectrum of HSP in Mali, under the mentorship of Pr. Guida Landouré, not only yielded novel variants but also highlighted families with negative screening, indicating gaps in existing knowledge. This led her to further explore these areas during her fellowship at Dr. Kenneth H. Fischbeck lab's, at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), Neurogenetics Branch National Institute of Health (NIH) at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) From 2018 to 2021, where she identified a putative novel gene associated to HSP in a Malian consanguineous family. In 2022, her love to science took her to Yale University's Pediatrics Genomics Discovery Program (PGDP) and Khokha labs, where she continued her research on “epilepsy genetics in Mali” under the supervision and collaboration of Drs. Guida Landouré, Mustafa Khokha, and Saquib Lakhani. Her focus currently on functional studies of putative novel epilepsy genes using the Xenopus model shows her interdisciplinary approach for understanding human disease mechanisms. Salimata's status as an international fellow highlight the importance of cross-cultural collaboration and knowledge exchange in advancing scientific research. Through her experiences, she not only enhanced her own skills and expertise but also facilitated the transfer of knowledge and technology between institutions. Her career path as a physician-scientist reflects her ambition to bridge the gap between clinical practice and research, with the goal of developing innovative diagnostics, therapeutics, and clinical protocols for rare and underserved diseases.
Stefany Lopes / Postdoctoral Associate
Stephen Kamuli / Postdoctoral Associate
Faiza Aslam / Postdoctoral Associate
Faiza Aslam received her undergraduate degree with a major in zoology and minor in chemistry, in 2011. Later, she did her master’s in biology from University of the Punjab in 2013 with a major in microbiology and molecular genetics. She made charcoal based biofertilizers with Bacillus spp. during her master’s studies. She finished her MPhil degree in biology in 2015. In her MPhil, she studied the characteristics of bacterial species found in the saline environment.
Faiza studied molecular biology in her PhD and did molecular characterization of genes involved in recessively inherited neurological disorders. She joined Khokha lab for two semesters in 2019, during her PhD, to validate the pathogenicity of variants of a newly identified gene, associated with ataxia and seizures, using Xenopus tropicalis as a model organism. She received her PhD degree in 2022 from Pakistan. Being fascinated by the studies of genes to explore the molecular pathways underlying the genetic diseases, she joined Khokha lab again in 2023 as a postdoctoral associate. Faiza is now working to explore the genetic cascades involved in congenital heart disease.
Nicholas Diab
Nick is a Yale MD/PhD student completing his PhD in the Department of Genetics. Before joining the Yale MD/PhD program, he graduated from Vanderbilt University, majoring with highest honors in molecular and cell biology and minoring in chemistry. Nick’s undergraduate research utilized budding yeast to explore protein trafficking dynamics at the trans-Golgi network. Prior to joining the Khokha Lab, Nick also spent two years involved in computational genomics research at Yale. His main activities outside of lab are taking care of his dog and competing in brazilian jiu jitsu.
Binyi Yang
Bill received his undergraduate clinical education in Xiangya Medical School, Central South University in China, and is currently pursuing an M.D. degree in Xiangya. Bill studies various genetic diseases, focusing on primary ciliary dyskinesia, a respiratory genetic disease. In 2024, Bill participated in the Yale-Xiangya two-year exchange program and started research on congenital heart disease and cilia-related diseases in the Khokha lab.
Amy Rushing
Salia Bamba / Postgraduate Fellow
Salia Bamba, PhD candidate in Human Genomics at the University of Science Techniques and Technologies of Bamako focused on genetics of seizure supported by the study of genetics of epilepsy in Mali. His research interest is to use genetics and genomics to discover rare genetic variations on a large impact of a human trait or disease. Particularly, he wants to identify genes causing familial epilepsy from undefined rare diseases for accurate clinical diagnosis. Understanding the molecular changes and the related etiopathology will benefit medical providers, patients, and families. He received his bachelor's in Immunology Cellular and Molecular from the Nature and Life Sciences of the University of Constantine (Algeria) in 2013. In the same University, after two years he found his master’s degree in Immunology Oncology in 2015. In 2015, he came to France for his second Master’s degree in Genetic Pathologies which he obtained in 2017 at the University of Rouen. His work was focused on the identification of genetic variants within gene EGFR and or TP53 and RB1 in circulating free DNA from patients with small cell lung cancer using the droplet digital PCR(ddPCR) and NGS approach. He worked as an Assistant researcher in the project on neurological inheritance disease in the Malian population from 2019 to 2023 before joining the Pediatric Genomics Discovery Program at Yale, as a Postgraduate to study the genetics of epilepsy, learning both bioinformatics skills and basic science bench research skills.
Kaitlin Levangie / Postgraduate Associate
Kaitlin graduated in 2022 from Fairfield University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. During her time at Fairfield, Kaitlin spent three years in the lab of Dr. Anita Fernandez where she studied genetic interactions involving mel-28 that affect fertility in C. elegans. For her work, she received the Fairfield Biology Department Research Distinction and admittance to the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society. Kaitlin joined the Khokha lab at the end of October of 2022, and has since been working on a screening project with the goal of identifying causative genes of heterotaxy.
Rachel Wyetzner / Postgraduate Associate
Teresa Aresta / Postgraduate Associate
Danielle Deutsch / Postgraduate Associate