Personnel

Alyssa Beck is a technician with the Kummer lab. Before joining the lab Alyssa worked as an emergency room tech and patient care technician. She is a graduate of Bradley University and St. Louis Community College and an expert at crafting unique and clever, sometimes groan-inducing jokes.

Porche Braun is a Nurse Research Coordinator with the Kummer lab. She received her degree in biology from Drury University and her nursing degree from Maryville University, and worked for many years as an RN in the Neurology and Neurosurgery Intensive Care Unit (NNICU) at Barnes Jewish Hospital. In 2021 she became the dedicated Research Coordinator for the Division of Neurocritical Care. She provides essential support for numerous ongoing clinical and translational studies in the Kummer lab, assisting with efforts to translate results from the laboratory to patients in the ICU.

Zaffar Equbal is a postdoc in the Kummer lab. He received his thesis from the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi, India, where he studied human mesenchymal cell differentiation into neurons. Zaffar also received an MSc in genetics from the University of Delhi. He has conducted disease-focused research in several laboratories and made important contributions to our understanding of gene expression, cell development, and disease modeling. Zaffar joined the Kummer lab in 2021 where his studies focus on untangling the molecular mechanisms of synaptic injury after TBI.

Jacob Harman is a technician with the Kummer lab. Before joining the lab Jacob worked as an animal technician in the mouse facilities at Washington University. He has had several prior jobs in veterinary medicine. Jacob is a graduate of Moberly Area Community College.

Enmanuel Perez is a Neurology resident working with the Kummer and Holtzman labs. He received his MD and PhD from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. There he completed his thesis research with Dr. Daniel Liebl studying synaptic mechanisms of injury following TBI. Enmanuel subsequently entered neurology residency at Washington University, where is was named the chief QI resident and was awarded an R25. He is currently working with the Kummer and Holtzman labs on the interaction between brain trauma and AD-related molecular processes.

Reitz is a graduate student in Neuroscience in the Kummer lab. Sydney previously worked and studied at Harvard Medical School in the lab of Dr. Mark Albers, where she focused on neurodegeneration using the vomeronasal organ as a model system. Her current work involves identification of positive markers of gray matter injury in TBI, and on further development of the SEQUIN method.

Andrew Sauerbeck is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine and the lead experimentalist and lab manager of the Kummer lab. Andrew completed his undergraduate and graduate training at the University of Kentucky’s Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Center working with Dr. Patrick G. Sullivan. His graduate research focused on metabolic dysfunction after TBI, and specifically on the role of mitochondria in secondary brain injury. He subsequently completed post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Dana M. McTigue where his studies revealed important roles of oxidative damage after spinal cord injury (SCI) and a surprising connection between SCI and hepatic injury. Since joining the Kummer lab, Andrew created a novel, nonsurgical, rapid and reliable model of diffuse complicated-mild and moderate TBI called modCHIMERA. Andrew subsequently developed a novel super-resolution microscopy-based method—SEQUIN—to quantify synapses that he is utilizing to understand gray matter injury after TBI and Alzheimer’s disease in pre-clinical models and in humans. Andrew received a T32 award and the Central Society for Clinical and Translational Research Early Career Development Award in recognition of his work in the Kummer lab.