Wagers Lab

Amy Wagers seeks to change the way we repair our tissues after an injury. Her research focuses on defining the factors and mechanisms that regulate the migration, expansion, and regenerative potential of adult blood-forming and muscle-forming stem cells.

Nema is the Core Facility Director for the department’s Flow Cytometry Core Facility. He carries out fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and analysis for scientists using the facility, and is the contact for Core training and scheduling.

Ozge is interested in understanding the molecular mechanism of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) function. She did her Ph.D. at EMBL (Italy) and Heidelberg University on the mechanism of how first HSCs in the mouse embryo emerge. Afterward, she worked on human HSCs and patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells to understand the underlying mechanism of hematological diseases. Currently, in Wagers lab, her postdoctoral project is on the regulation of HSC expansion, self-renewal, and differentiation in the adult mouse.

Parker’s is developing genetic strategies to treat mutation-driven muscular diseases. He has expertise in gene editing approaches and testing AAV-mediated CRISPR-Cas9 and adenine base editing for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and collagen VI-related myopathy. He has alsodesigned an AAV-based Myo-editing system for efficient genetic perturbation and lineage tracing, enabling precise determination of edited cell fate.

Kelly is a graduate student in the MCO program. Her research focuses on cardiac aging and the role of CISD2, exploring its function in heart biology and its potential relevance to age-related cardiac dysfunction.

Regan is researching immune response to gene editing machinery and investigating strategies to improve therapeutic outcomes. She is a PhD student in the Bioengineering program at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering & Applied Sciences.

Rebekah Kim graduated with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Math from UCLA in 2018. She’s interested in investigating hematopoietic stem cell biology and genetic engineering for gene therapy against blood disorders.

Kathleen joined the Wagers Lab from Genzyme Sanofi. She obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from Northeastern University.

Lily graduated from Harvard College in 2025 with a concentration in Chemical and Physical Biology. Now a Research Assistant in the Wagers Lab at Joslin Diabetes Center, her research focuses on comparing skeletal muscle physiology and regeneration between GDF11-WE and wild-type mice.

Paloma is a Harvard undergraduate concentrator in Integrative Biology in the Wagers Lab at the Joslin Diabetes Center. She is working on designing an AAV-based, and epithelial cell specific, growth factor delivery method to regrow the thymus in aging mice.

Heidi Kletzien is a Biomedical Engineer interested in understanding the molecular underpinnings and dynamics of age-related head and neck tissue dysfunction and head and neck cancer (HNC) initiation. Heidi is a NIH Postdoctoral fellow and her research harnesses novel multi-omics and, in vivo, CRISPR-mediated genome engineering approaches.

Bryan received an A.B. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology at Harvard in 2018. He was an Amgen Scholar at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a Peer Study Leader in the Harvard Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Bryan’s research focuses on genome editing, viral-mediated gene therapy, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

After completing her postdoc in the Wagers lab, Alessandra took on a position as senior scientific researcher at Genentech.

After completing his Masters thesis in the Wagers Lab, Eric worked as a research intern at the University of Zurich, then enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Life Science Zurich Graduate School.

Naftali Horwitz graduated with a B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Johns Hopkins University in 2016. His studies center around stem cell maintenance and tissue regeneration in the context of aging.

Medha graduated in 2021 with a degree in Biological Sciences from University at Buffalo (SUNY) and has been working as a RA since September 2021. Medha’s research focuses on engineering whole-body gene therapy for rare genetic disorders like Wolfram syndrome II.

Brice is an undergraduate studying Molecular & Cellular Biology and Statistics.

Nguyen-Anh obtained her B.A. in Biology from Earlham College in 2021. Her research focuses on examining the effect of GDF11 on skeletal muscle development and the mechanisms of stem cell aging that contribute to head & neck cancers.

Robert is currently earning his A.B. in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology from Harvard. He is interested in the mechanisms underlying age-associated chronic diseases and plans to pursue a PhD after graduation.

Maddie is an undergraduate studying Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology with a secondary in Psychology. She hopes to combine these two interests to be a translational psychiatrist.

Brandon is an undergraduate studying Molecular and Cellular Biology, conducting hematopoietic stem cell research on blood disorders and gene therapies.