People
Current members
Tejpal Gill, Ph.D.
Principle Investigator
Dr. Tejpal Gill is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Basic Research at the Division of Arthritis and Rheumatic Diseases, Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), Portland. Before joining OHSU, Tejpal did her research fellowship at National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at NIH and post-doctoral scholarship at Case Western Reserve University.
Sean Davin
Research Associate
Sean has been with the lab since May 2012 as it has gone through various changes over the years. In addition to managing lab logistics, he is primary involved with various 16s sequencing projects, as well as bacterial translocation studies. Sean received his B.S. in Micro/Molecular biology from Portland State University. Shortly after graduating he began volunteering in the Pennesi lab studying degenerative retinal disorders utilizing a novel light damage box that he designed and fabricated. He is working with the Gill lab as a research assistant since 2019, and he has contributed to many projects over the years ranging from 16s sequencing, microbial metabolomics, and rat genetics in the search for the connection between the commensal microbiome and various spondyloarthropathies.
Kim Ogle
Sr. Clinical Research Assistant
Kimberly has worked with the Gill lab since its establishment in 2019. As the senior clinical research coordinator, she performs all duties related to administration of active studies involving human subjects. She also assists with day-to-day operations oversight in and around the lab. Kimberly earned a BA in Liberal Arts with a performance and visual arts focus from The Evergreen State College. She transitioned to her role in inflammatory disease research after several years of clinical administrative experience in general surgery, orthopedics and sports medicine, and ophthalmology.
Emma Fale-Olsen
Clinical Research Assistant
Emma has been working with the Gill Lab since January of 2022 as a clinical research coordinator. She works within various OHSU clinics to coordinate patient recruitment and specimen collection for studies in the Gill Lab and Martin Lab. She also is responsible for maintaining study compliance, phlebotomy, study data management and sample processing for the lab. Emma received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Oregon. Previously, she was a medical scribe for OHSU as well as a undergraduate teaching assistant and COVID case worker for the University of Oregon. She is interested in pursuing graduate school in the near future.
John Davis
Research Assistant-2
John Davis is a Portland State University graduate, earning degrees in both biology and psychology in 2010. John has been a valued member of the OHSU team, where he has gained significant experience in the field of research. Outside of work, John enjoys anything spontaneous and hates making plans in advance.
John joined the Gill lab in 2021, and manages the rodent colony and contributes to the rat genetic study. He also specializes in microbial, rodent and human DNA Isolation for various downstream analysis such as PCRs, 16S microbiome and IgA-sequencing.
Alec Furst
Research Assistant-2
Alec has been with the Gill lab since 2019 as a Research Assistant and will be attending OHSU’s MD program in August 2023. He is working to determine the additional genes/variants underlying disease development in HLA-B27 transgenic rats. He is also working on the IgA sequencing of gut microbes in various spondyloarthropathies and generating colonic gut organoids. Alec received his B.S. in Biology from Pacific University where he studied abroad in Quito, Ecuador and the Galapagos archipelago. He is currently spearheading the lab genetics project. He is a part of NNACoE and Wy’East helping to increase AI/AN representation in research and healthcare.
Summer students
Tanush Sistla
Tanush is currently a senior at Lincoln High School, interested in bioinformatics, as well as immunology and the gut microbiome. He spends most of his time at the lab assisting with procedure prep, managing data on the rats, and conducting literature reviews. When he’s not doing/observing experiments in the lab, Tanush fills his time with reading, hiking, and programming the occasional terrible game.
Lakshman Manickam
Lakshman is a senior at Westview High School in Portland, Oregon. He aspires to be a pediatrician and is interested in immunology and neuroscience. He spends his time at the Gill Lab learning about host-microbe interactions through literature, working on data entry, and shadowing and assisting with procedures. Outside of the lab, Lakshman enjoys reading and binging K-Dramas.
Past members
Henry Bringenberg
Henry joined the department in January 2022 as a research assistant. He helps out with a variety of different tasks, and is involved with the rat genomic project. He received a B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Oregon, and volunteered at the Portland Japanese Garden prior to his employment at OHSU. Coming in without a research background, Henry’s learned quite a lot from his time in the lab, and he’s found it very exciting to share in the experiences of the lab technicians with whom he works closely.
Manuel ‘Manny’ Rodriguez
I received a Biochemistry degree at the University of Portland and worked as a volunteer research intern in the Coussens lab under Dr. Sushil Kumar. I ended up loving the immune system and found my way in the Asquith/Rosenbaum Lab and then Gill Lab as a research assistant II. I fell in love with the gut-immune axis. Specifically, if you can modulate the gut biome, this can have an effect on the health of humans. I am proficient in Primary tissue cell culture (Organoid), Multi-color Flow Cytometry, 16s rRNA Prep, Immunohistochemistry (IHC) / immunofluorescence staining (IF), and RT-qPCR. I am a current MS2/MS3 at OHSU School of Medicine, previous Wy’east scholar from Cohort 3. I like to ride my bike around the town, hike, see concerts, and read on my off time.