Will Bailis Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Will Bailis is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Will began his career in science spending his college summers training under Dr. Chioma Okeoma in the laboratory of Dr. Susan Ross, studying viral restriction by APOBEC3. He then received his PhD in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied the role of Notch signaling in helper T cell differentiation with Dr. Yumi Ohtani, in the lab of Dr. Warren Pear. After graduating, he joined Dr. Richard Flavell’s research group at Yale University for his postdoctoral fellowship. 

During his postdoctoral training, he worked with Dr. Justin Shyer to develop in vitro and in vivo primary immune cell CRISPR screening systems to study how cellular metabolism controls immune cell functional programming. His work demonstrated how distinct modes of mitochondrial metabolism and mitochondrial-cytosolic exchange support the unique biochemical demands T lymphocytes must meet at different stages of activation.

Now at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Will continues to explore how metabolism governs cell and tissue behavior, seeking to understand how its dysregulation helps explain disease. When he isn’t rambling on about metabolism or the immune system, you can find Will listening to history podcasts, debating anything and nothing over a drink, or singing songs with lyrics replaced by peoples’ and pets’ names.

Will Bailis Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Will Bailis is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Will began his career in science spending his college summers training under Dr. Chioma Okeoma in the laboratory of Dr. Susan Ross, studying viral restriction by APOBEC3. He then received his PhD in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied the role of Notch signaling in helper T cell differentiation with Dr. Yumi Ohtani, in the lab of Dr. Warren Pear. After graduating, he joined Dr. Richard Flavell’s research group at Yale University for his postdoctoral fellowship. 

During his postdoctoral training, he worked with Dr. Justin Shyer to develop in vitro and in vivo primary immune cell CRISPR screening systems to study how cellular metabolism controls immune cell functional programming. His work demonstrated how distinct modes of mitochondrial metabolism and mitochondrial-cytosolic exchange support the unique biochemical demands T lymphocytes must meet at different stages of activation.

Now at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Will continues to explore how metabolism governs cell and tissue behavior, seeking to understand how its dysregulation helps explain disease. When he isn’t rambling on about metabolism or the immune system, you can find Will listening to history podcasts, debating anything and nothing over a drink, or singing songs with lyrics replaced by peoples’ and pets’ names.

Post Doctoral & Clinical Researchers

Kelly Rome, Ph.D.

Kelly joined the Bailis lab as a postdoctoral fellow in November 2019. Prior to joining, she had completed her PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Warren Pear next door at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied the role of a family of pseudokinases in controlling T cell effector programs during chronic disease and T cell exhaustion.

Her current research interests lie in understanding how systemic metabolism integrates with metabolic networks at the cellular level and how these processes underlie immune function in human disease.

When not in lab, she enjoys spending time with her husband Scott, booping things with her kids Carlo & Rosie, and lounging around with her two mischievous cats G and Niko.

Eric Cross

Eric joined the lab in the spring of 2022 as a Clinical Pathology resident physician in the Physician Scientist Training Program at University of Pennsylvania. He is interested in T cell metabolism and leveraging our understanding of immunometabolism for better cellular therapies.

Eric previously completed his MD/PhD training at University of Colorado and did his research in Ross Kedl’s laboratory. There he focused on characterizing mutually beneficial, non-canonical CD8:B cell interactions after subunit vaccination as well as understanding how CD8 T cells that survive antibody-mediated depletion are altered. He is currently interested in deciphering how CAR and TCR signaling may affect T cell metabolism differently, focusing on NAD synthesis and utilization. Eric will be the Transfusion Medicine Fellow for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for ’23-’24 and as such is motivated to adapt cellular and gene therapies into clinical realities.

Post Doctoral Fellow

Kelly Rome, Ph.D.

Kelly joined the Bailis lab as a postdoctoral fellow in November 2019. Prior to joining, she had completed her PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Warren Pear next door at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied the role of a family of pseudokinases in controlling T cell effector programs during chronic disease and T cell exhaustion.

Her current research interests lie in understanding how systemic metabolism integrates with metabolic networks at the cellular level and how these processes underlie immune function in human disease.

When not in lab, she enjoys spending time with her husband Scott, booping things with her little boy Carlo and lounging around with her two mischievous cats G and Niko.

Graduate Students

Michael Scaglione

Michael is a 3rd year graduate student in the Immunology Graduate Group. Originally from Michigan, he studied biology at University of Alabama as an undergraduate and joined the Bailis lab at UPenn in 2019 to work on immunometabolism. 

For his thesis work, he studies metabolic sensing in immune cells and how nutrient sensing is integrated into lymphoid and myeloid immune responses, particularly through transcriptional and translational regulation. Outside of lab, he enjoys hiking, cycling, homebrewing, and crafting the perfect espresso. He has two cats – Coco and Delia – that are constantly trying to eat any food in sight.

Brian
Goldspiel

Brian is an MSTP student hailing originally from south Jersey. His fascination with little things that cause big problems began at a young age, and led him to get his B.Sc. in biology from the University of Chicago with a focus in microbiology. 

After a short stint at the Fred Hutch Research Center, Brian moved to Philly in 2018 to begin his MD/PhD program in microbiology. 

Brian is interested in how metabolic networks are formed between intracellular bacterial pathogens and their host cells, and hopes to apply that information clinically to advance treatment of infectious diseases.

In his spare time, you can find Brian lifting heavy things, climbing walls, or sucked into the latest Nintendo game

Morgan Brown

Morgan is a graduate student in the Cancer Biology Program and joined the lab in 2022. A Pennsylvania local, she studied biochemistry and molecular biology at Gettysburg College and spent a few years in the immune-oncology research team at Janssen R&D before pursuing her PhD.

While at Gettysburg, Morgan worked in the lab of Dr. Steve James investigating oncogenic cell cycle regulators through the lens of fungal genetics (James et al. 2022). She utilized her skills with gene expression and transcriptional profiling at Janssen to monitor the pharmacodynamic effects of immunotherapy in patients with heme malignancies. This sparked her interest in the mechanisms underlying cancer and immune cell interactions, and her thesis research focuses on understanding how metabolites are regulated in the tumor microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and how this impacts T cell activation and anti-tumor function.

Outside of lab, you can find Morgan hiking along Wissahickons popular trails, sketching, and rolling some dice with her local tabletop group.

Khris Trihemasava

Khris is a graduate student in the Immunology Graduate Group and joined the Bailis lab in 2022.

His interest in research began at North Carolina State University where he studied biochemistry and worked on ligand-receptor signaling interactions. He then worked as a post-baccalaureate fellow in the lab of Dr. Susan Moir at the NIH studying B cell immunology in context of infectious diseases. In the Bailis lab, he is interested in studying how universal metabolites differentially regulate immune cells throughout their development and how they coordinate responses across multiple cell types within a local microenvironment.

Outside of the lab, Khris enjoys cooking (mainly Southeast/East Asian cuisine) to keep alive his contingency dream of opening a restaurant. Taking the opposite approach from science, he follows no recipes and cooks from the heart. He also enjoys traveling (to eat).

Van Le

Van is a graduate student in the Cell Biology, Physiology, and Metabolism program and joined our lab in the summer of 2023. 

Originally from Vietnam, she embarked on her undergraduate journey at the University of South Florida, where her fascination with biomedical research began.

Since becoming a member of the Bailis lab, Van has been captivated to explore the mechanism behind how glucose restriction primes signaling cascades to preserve the proliferative capacity in CD8+ T cells. Her focus lies particularly on unraveling the intricacies of metabolic reprogramming and mitochondrial modeling.

Outside of the lab, Van enjoys traveling, hiking, and eating good foods!

Qihua Ashley Yang

Ashley is a master’s student in Biotechnology from Penn Engineering.

She received her B.A. in Biology from Bryn Mawr College in 2022. Prior to joining the Bailis lab, she worked in the lab of Dr. Yan Kung to study the structural basis of HMGR cofactor specificity for either NADH or NADPH using X-ray crystallography. Outside of academics, she enjoyed dancing, traveling, and taking weird photos of her cat Freiheit (“freedom” in German).

Graduate Students

Luke Turner

Luke joined the lab in the summer of 2019 and is a PhD candidate in Penn’s Immunology Graduate Group. From Cincinnati, he studied biochemistry at Miami University and later became interested in T cell biology while working as a lab technician in the lab of Dr. Sing Sing Way at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. 

In the lab, he is really interested in understanding how lymphocytes metabolically rewire themselves during their exit from quiescence to prepare for rapid proliferation. His thesis project is specifically focused on understanding how T cells both regulate and require NAD synthesis.  

Outside of the lab, Luke enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife, Reina. He tries to stay active in the music community as an upright bass player and maintains a nano-brewing operation with lab mate Michael Scaglione.  

Michael Scaglione

Michael is a 3rd year graduate student in the Immunology Graduate Group. Originally from Michigan, he studied biology at University of Alabama as an undergraduate and joined the Bailis lab at UPenn in 2019 to work on immunometabolism. 

For his thesis work, he studies metabolic sensing in immune cells and how nutrient sensing is integrated into lymphoid and myeloid immune responses, particularly through transcriptional and translational regulation. Outside of lab, he enjoys hiking, cycling, homebrewing, and crafting the perfect espresso. He has two cats – Coco and Delia – that are constantly trying to eat any food in sight.

Alisa “Alice” Sukhina

Alice (they/them & she/her) is a PhD Candidate in Microbiology, Virology, and Parasitology subdivision of UPenn Cell and Molecular Biology program.

Alice was born in Ukraine before moving to Russia at the age of 12. They then moved to Los Angeles to pursue an undergraduate degree in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics with focus on Biomedical Research at UCLA.

At UCLA, Alice worked in the laboratory of Dr. Ting-Ting Wu on vaccine development against gamma herpesviruses (Brar et al, 2020). After discovering their passion for immunology and host-pathogen interactions in undergrad, Alice moved to Philadelphia in 2018 to start working towards their PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at University of Pennsylvania.

Currently, Alice is a part of Bailis Laboratory where she investigates the role of monoamines (neuroactive amino acid products) in activation and differentiation of T cells.

Alice is an active member of UPenn community. They have organized LGBTq+ events for graduate students and founded Peer Support Network, a mental health focused student group. In addition, Alice is Science Communications Chair at Penn Science Policy and Diplomacy Group where she leads organizing of year-long professional development SciComm workshop series and supports members of STEM community in writing for PSPDG blogs and creating “Penn Talks Science” podcast. Alice is also a proud cat parent of 3 kitties and an armature seamstress (yes, they do sew cat outfits, and no, her cats do not wear them).

Brian Goldspiel

Brian is an MSTP student hailing originally from south Jersey. His fascination with little things that cause big problems began at a young age, and led him to get his B.Sc. in biology from the University of Chicago with a focus in microbiology. 

After a short stint at the Fred Hutch Research Center, Brian moved to Philly in 2018 to begin his MD/PhD program in microbiology. 

Brian is interested in how metabolic networks are formed between intracellular bacterial pathogens and their host cells, and hopes to apply that information clinically to advance treatment of infectious diseases.

In his spare time, you can find Brian lifting heavy things, climbing walls, or sucked into the latest Nintendo game

Lab Staff

Clemence Queriault, M.S.

Research Specialist

Clémence joined the Bailis lab in early 2019. She comes from France where she obtained a master’s degree in cell and gene tissue biotherapy at the University of Paris East. 

She worked for 5 years as a research engineer in a neuroimmunology laboratory in the south of France in the Liblau lab.

Elise Hall

Lab Manager
Elise Hall is the lab manager and a technician who contributes to several projects in the Bailis Lab.

After growing up in the Chicago area, she recently graduated from Villanova University with a BS in Biology. Elise is currently contributing to Kelly and Michael’s research in T cell metabolism in response to nutrient stress. 

Elise did her undergraduate thesis in the Wilson lab at Villanova, studying bacterial microcompartments and helping to develop a method for their cloning and purification from heterologous bacterial strains. She loves to try out new things and her hobbies include hiking, knitting, performing in a chamber choir, and binge-ing past seasons of Survivor.

Montana Knight

Bioinformatics Scientist

Montana did her undergraduate at Florida Gulf Coast University and then went on to get her doctorate in Bioinformatics at North Carolina State University, where she focused on using ’Omics tools to study plant response to abiotic stress.

Now Montana collaborates on a variety of projects, offering computational expertise and helping analyze data. Her foundation is in advanced applications of RNA-Sequencing data, but she is also interested in machine learning, multivariate statistics, and other ’Omics tools like metabolomics.

When not playing around with data, she can be found at a local brewery or walking her dog.

Reaction Products: Alumni

Luke Turner, Ph.D

Luke joined the lab in the summer of 2019 and is a PhD candidate in Penn’s Immunology Graduate Group. From Cincinnati, he studied biochemistry at Miami University and later became interested in T cell biology while working as a lab technician in the lab of Dr. Sing Sing Way at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. 

In the lab, he is really interested in understanding how lymphocytes metabolically rewire themselves during their exit from quiescence to prepare for rapid proliferation. His thesis project is specifically focused on understanding how T cells both regulate and require NAD synthesis.  

Outside of the lab, Luke enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife, Reina. He tries to stay active in the music community as an upright bass player and maintains a nano-brewing operation with lab mate Michael Scaglione.  

Alisa "Alice" Sukhina

Alice (they/them & she/her) is a PhD Candidate in Microbiology, Virology, and Parasitology subdivision of UPenn Cell and Molecular Biology program.

At UCLA, Alice worked in the laboratory of Dr. Ting-Ting Wu on vaccine development against gamma herpesviruses (Brar et al, 2020). After discovering their passion for immunology and host-pathogen interactions in undergrad, Alice moved to Philadelphia in 2018 to start working towards their PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at University of Pennsylvania.

Currently, Alice is a part of Bailis Laboratory where she investigates the role of monoamines (neuroactive amino acid products) in activation and differentiation of T cells.

Alice is an active member of UPenn community. They have organized LGBTq+ events for graduate students and founded Peer Support Network, a mental health focused student group. In addition, Alice is Science Communications Chair at Penn Science Policy and Diplomacy Group where she leads organizing of year-long professional development SciComm workshop series and supports members of STEM community in writing for PSPDG blogs and creating “Penn Talks Science” podcast. Alice is also a proud cat parent of 3 kitties and an armature seamstress (yes, they do sew cat outfits, and no, her cats do not wear them).

Janet Nguyen

Lab Technician
Janet Nguyen is the lab manager and a technician who contributes to several projects in the Bailis Lab.

Janet discovered her interest in science in high school after participating in Biogen Idec’s Community Summer Lab program. During the program, Janet learned how to perform site-directed mutagenesis and purify GFP that remained fluorescent for at least 5 years (let’s hope it is still fluorescent when she rediscovers the tube).

After graduating from Amherst College with a BA in Neuroscience, Janet discovered her interest in the connection between the nervous and immune systems, and she joined the Bailis Lab to learn more about the immunology axis. From her first research experience in high school until now, Janet enjoys using cell and molecular biology techniques the most.

Outside of science, Janet is the proud cat mom of Carlos, who is a pirate cat rescued through PAWS.

Chao Di, Ph.D.

Bioinformatics Scientist

After many years of training (doctorate and postdoctoral) in bioinformatics and genomics, Chao works as a Bioinformatics Scientist at DBHi, CHOP for several research labs simultaneously.

Chao is responsible for doing all kinds of bioinformatics analysis for the projects, including analyzing high-throughput data, helping lab members with any questions on data analysis, statistics, software/tools usage, programming codes review, etc.

Over the past decade, Chao has been developing bioinformatics methods/pipelines to analyze high-throughput sequencing data (e.g., RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, XLIP-seq) and seeking biological meanings under big data. These works have resulted in many novel findings in the field of RNA biology.

Chao is interested in collaborating with people on a wide variety of research topics, and enjoys seeing his contribution help them to gain deep insight into the mechanisms behind the diseases.

Lab Staff

Janet Ngyuen

Lab Technician
Janet Nguyen is the lab manager and a technician who contributes to several projects in the Bailis Lab.

Janet discovered her interest in science in high school after participating in Biogen Idec’s Community Summer Lab program. During the program, Janet learned how to perform site-directed mutagenesis and purify GFP that remained fluorescent for at least 5 years (let’s hope it is still fluorescent when she rediscovers the tube).

After graduating from Amherst College with a BA in Neuroscience, Janet discovered her interest in the connection between the nervous and immune systems, and she joined the Bailis Lab to learn more about the immunology axis. From her first research experience in high school until now, Janet enjoys using cell and molecular biology techniques the most.

Outside of science, Janet is the proud cat mom of Carlos, who is a pirate cat rescued through PAWS.

Clemence Queriault, M.S.

Lab Technician

Clémence joined the Bailis lab in early 2019. She comes from France where she obtained a master’s degree in cell and gene tissue biotherapy at the University of Paris East. 

She worked for 5 years as a research engineer in a neuroimmunology laboratory in the south of France in the Liblau lab.

Chao Di, Ph.D.

Bioinformatics Scientist

After many years of training (doctorate and postdoctoral) in bioinformatics and genomics, Chao works as a Bioinformatics Scientist at DBHi, CHOP for several research labs simultaneously.

Chao is responsible for doing all kinds of bioinformatics analysis for the projects, including analyzing high-throughput data, helping lab members with any questions on data analysis, statistics, software/tools usage, programming codes review, etc.

Over the past decade, Chao has been developing bioinformatics methods/pipelines to analyze high-throughput sequencing data (e.g., RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, XLIP-seq) and seeking biological meanings under big data. These works have resulted in many novel findings in the field of RNA biology.

Chao is interested in collaborating with people on a wide variety of research topics, and enjoys seeing his contribution help them to gain deep insight into the mechanisms behind the diseases.