Samelson Lab Members

Avi Samelson, Ph.D.
he/him/his
Principal Investigator
asamelson (at) ucla.edu
0000-0003-3468-6971
Profile
Avi's Citations
samelsonlab.bsky.social
asamelson

Avi is originally from Berkeley, CA. He was an undergraduate at Northwestern University where he worked with Dr. Alfonso Mondragón. During the summers he worked in the lab of Dr. Tom Alber with Dr. James Fraser to study how to access protein conformational ensembles using room temperature x-ray crystallography.

He began graduate school in 2011 to do his Ph.D. in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at UC Berkeley. There, he worked with Dr. Susan Marqusee and created new methods to characterize the thermodynamics, kinetics, and folding trajectories of ribosome nascent chains.

In 2017, Avi started his postdoc in Dr. Martin Kampmann’s lab at UCSF in the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases. There, he created new technologies for antibody-based genetic modifier screens in differentiated cell types with a focus on understanding how neurons control the protein aggregation trajectory of tau. Avi discovered new principles of tau proteostasis in neurons, including a new tau E3 ubiquitin ligase and a connection between oxidative stress and tau proteasomal (mis)processing. He also led a project that discovered novel regulators of the SARS-CoV-2 host receptor ACE2. Avi started his lab at UCLA as an Assitant Professor in the Department of Neurology with a secondary affiliation in Biological Chemistry in January of 2025. The lab is focused on characterizing protein aggregation trajectories and how cells control those trajectories.

Sandra Rached
she/her/hers
Lab Manager
srached (at) mednet.ucla.edu
0009-0001-5778-6927
sandra-rached-77708229a

Sandra recently earned her Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacology from UCSB. During undergrad, she worked in drug development and quality control at Vascular Biosciences. There, her research focused on developing and optimizing a peptide-conjugated liposome drug delivery system that preferentially targets diseased tissues in pulmonary hypertension. In the Samelson lab, Sandra is responsible for lab management, protein biochemistry, and molecular and cell biology experiments. Outside of the lab, Sandra likes going on long walks, cooking, sewing, and vintage shopping.

Manasi Movva
she/her/hers
Rotation Student
manasimovva (at) g.ucla.edu
0009-0008-2729-4463
manasi-movva
Manasi's Citations

I graduated from UC San Diego in 2023 with a major in Biochemistry and a minor in Bioethics. My love for research and curiosity about disease mechanisms began as an undergrad in the Debelouchina lab where I studied how tau interacts with heterochromatin. After graduating, I spent a year in industry at Biolegend on the quality control team where I validated antibodies using Western blots. Now, I’m a graduate student in UCLA’s Molecular Biology Institute in the Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) home area. As a rotation student, I’m investigating different approaches to studying Alzheimer’s Disease, with a strong interest in using structural biology and biochemical techniques to build a solid foundation for my findings. Outside the lab, I love getting creative in the kitchen with cooking and baking, exploring new hiking trails, traveling to national parks, trying out new crafts, swimming at the beach, and gardening.

Victoria Turnbill
she/her/hers
Graduate Student
vturnbill (at) g.ucla.edu
0009-0001-1710-1313
victoria-t-30046a157
Victoria's Citations

Victoria earned a BA in Biological Sciences from Mt. Holyoke College in 2017 where she studied the evolutionary mechanisms underlying sexual dimorphism in the reproductive organs of various species in the lab of Dr. Patricia Brennan. She earned an MS in Biology in 2019 from Chatham University where she completed her thesis on sexual dimorphism in the fish genus Cyprinodon using geometric morphometrics in the lab of Dr. Michael Collyer. Victoria then spent 4 years as a research technologist at Johns Hopkins University in the lab of Dr. Frances Northington. Here, Victoria primarily studied neonatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) in both wildtype mice and transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease using a variety of techniques including mouse behavior and cognitive testing, immunofluorescent staining and confocal microscopy, and much more. Since enrolling in the UCLA Interdepartmental PhD Program for Neuroscience in 2023, Victoria has rotated in the labs of Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl, Dr. Yirong Peng, and Dr. Lindsay De Biase. Now, as a rotating graduate student in the Samelson Lab, Victoria is expanding her skillset and focusing her interests in neurodegenerative disease, aging, and sexual dimorphism into a study of Parkinson’s disease pathogenesis at the cellular level. Outside the lab, Victoria enjoys hiking, weightlifting, archery, and lazy days at the beach.