Lab Members

 Yingleong (Rigel) Chan, PhD, assistant professor of neurology
 Principal Investigator of Rigel Chan Lab. 

Rigel Chan, PhD, started his career as a software engineer after graduating from the School of Computing (B.Comp) at the National University of Singapore. Soon after, he applied for a graduate fellowship to study Bioinformatics at the School of Medicine and graduated with a Masters of Science in Bioinformatics. Rigel then proceeded to continue his graduate education by studying Genetics and Genomics at Harvard University under the supervision of Professor Joel Hirschhorn. Chan, PhD, completed his postdoc research in Functional Genomics at Professor George Church's Lab at the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.

Rigel Chan has a deep interest in applying quantitative approaches using in-vitro models to further genetics research. His research is interdisciplinary encompassing both bioinformatics (Algorithm Design, Statistical Analysis, Data Processing, etc) as well as wet-lab experimental approaches (Tissue Culture, DNA and RNA sequencing, Gene Editing, etc).

For more information regarding the Rigel Chan Lab research, please email to:

Elaine Lim, assistant professor
co-Principal Investigator of Rigel Chan Lab 
  

Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology,
UMass Chan Medical School

New students

Khanh Tran is a second-year PhD student who joined the Lim-Chan lab in 2023. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2022 with a B.S. in Medical Sciences, minoring in Psychology. Her research in the Lim-Chan lab focuses on investigating the mechanisms of Multiple Sclerosis to understand the disease's pathogenesis and develop innovative technologies for cell-type-specific splicing analysis to identify potential therapeutic targets. When she is not in the lab, she enjoys knitting, painting, and exploring Boston.


Adrian Orszulak is a PhD student in the Lim-Chan Lab. He graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2022 with a B.S. in Biology & Biotechnology and Bioinformatics & Computational Biology. He is currently examining HSV-1 infection of cerebral organoids and emergent AD-like pathology in the context of neuroinflammation and innate immunity. Outside the lab, Adrian enjoys playing water polo, cooking, and playing board games. 

Samantha Chigas is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Lim-Chan lab. She is working on identifying cell-type specific effects and associated genetic changes of HSV-1 infection on cerebral organoids and how these can lead to Alzheimer’s disease. Sam graduated from Salem State University with a B.S. in biomedical sciences in 2017 and worked for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals as an associate scientist in CNS research up until she came to UMass Chan. In her free time, Sam enjoys spending time at the beach, going to concerts and relaxing with her cat, Herman.

New Research Assistants

Nathaniel Barton is a bioinformatics research associate in the Lim-Chan lab. His work is focused on identification of MS-associated epitopes in CSF, development of automated flow-cytometry data analysis, and development of single-cell spatial transcriptomic pipelines.  Nathaniel graduated with B.S. in Genetics, Genomics, & Biotechnology from Brigham Young University in 2021, with a secondary major in Bioinformatics, and minors in Computer Science and Molecular Biology. Outside of the lab, he enjoys cooking, reading, and playing the piano. 

Jon Sundstrom is a research associate in the Lim-Chan lab. His work is focused on examining cell-type specific changes in cerebral organoid cultures in response to infection with HSV-1 or influenza virus, and how these changes may or may not be indicative of Alzheimer’s disease. Previously, he worked as a research technician at McLean Hospital studying bioenergetic dysregulation in iPSC-derived neuronal cells from Alzheimer’s patients, as well as developing therapeutics for correcting this dysfunction. He holds a BS in biotechnology from the University of Rhode Island and graduated in 2021. In his free time, Jon enjoys playing the piano, cooking, and spending too much money on coffee. 

Pepper Dawes

Meagan Olson has been a research associate in the Lim-Chan lab since June 2022. She is using flow cytometry to study how different cell types within cerebral organoids respond to HSV-1 infection and drug treatment. Meagan graduated from UMass Amherst in 2022 with a B.S. in biology and a B.S. in psychology-neuroscience. At UMass Amherst, she was an undergraduate research assistant in the Katz lab studying nudibranch neurobiology and behavior for 3 years. In her free time, Meagan enjoys dancing, collecting crystals, and watching bird videos with her cat, Asher.

Liam Murray