Senior Scientists

Fell, Gillian Fell, Gillian is a senior scientist in the Longaker lab and a Clinical Instructor in the Pediatric Surgery division at Stanford Health. She completed her MD degree at Harvard Medical School and PhD degree in biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard University. She completed general surgery residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, as well as postdoctoral research studies at Boston Children's Hospital. She completed a pediatric surgery fellowship at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. In the Longaker Lab she focuses on hepatic development, fibrosis, and regeneration. She is pursuing several translational studies relevant to metabolic-associated Steatotic liver disease (MASLD) in the pediatric bariatric population as well as cholestatic liver disease in the intestinal failure population. Another area of study includes novel strategies for weaning off intravenous nutrition in the intestinal failure population.

Dr. Januszyk, Michael is an Instructor in the Department of Surgery. He has spent his academic career working and studying in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology. His areas of expertise include single cell multi-omics, wound healing biology, machine learning, and data mining of electronic health records. He has received numerous research grants from the NIH, NSF, DOD, and American Heart Association, among others, leading to more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. He performed his PhD studies at Stanford under the advisership of Dr. Atul Butte during which time he developed a computational framework for the analysis of complex tissue populations in heterogeneous disease states. He subsequently trained in reconstructive surgery at UCLA and completed an advanced wound care clinical fellowship at Stanford. Michael has successfully adapted his prior work on single cell transcriptomics to the modern landscape of next-gen sequencing, working closely with Stanford's Functional Genomics Facility (SFGF) to pioneer new methods for the evaluation of cellular programming with spatial complexity, including the first ever platform for imputation of spatial epigenomics. He has applied these methods to expand our understanding of the complex wound environment, particularly as it relates to external mechanical forces, and identified a novel fibroblast subpopulation that is mechano-responsive and proliferates clonally to promote tissue regeneration in healing wounds.

Quarto, Natalina is a Senior Scientist in Dr. Longaker's laboratory. She received her PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Napoli Federico II and Specialization in Medical Genetic from the University of Roma "La Sapienza". She pursued her postdoctoral research at the New York University with a focus on FGF-2 Biology. In her research, Natalina successfully identified for the first time that there are three forms of Fibroblasts Growth Factor-2 (FGF-2), namely high molecular weight (HMW-FGF-2) and low molecular weight (LMW-FGF-2) with different sub cellular distribution and functions. She has spent significant time researching skeletal biology and regenerative medicine, with major focus on calvarial bones and cranial sutures. Her work has unveiled significant differences in osteogenic capacity and tissue repair. She is currently investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying premature closure of sutures, namely craniosynostosis. In her free time, Natalina enjoys sailing and growing orchids.