Lab Members

Madelyn (Maddie) Arzt earned her BA in biochemistry from Pitzer College. She previously studied amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) using pluripotent stem cell models. She joined the Sharma Lab in October 2021. Her role in the Sharma Lab has focused on performing cardiotoxicity and imaging assays on cardiomyocytes derived from patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells to better understand the mechanisms of chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy.

Maedeh Mozneb earned her PhD in biomedical engineering from Florida International University, where she studied the application of plasmonic-based optical sensors in cardiomyocyte electrophysiology. Maedeh joined the Sharma Lab in August 2022, where she is working on cardiac organ-chips and characterizing the effects of low-Earth orbit (LEO) on stem cell expansion, transfection, reprogramming and differentiation.

Sean Escopete earned his BS in biology from California State University, San Bernardino. As a PhD student in the Biomedical Sciences PhD program, Sean is investigating methods to improve 3D differentiation of human iPSCs into cardiac organoids.

Jemima Moses was previously a CIRM BRIDGES scholar in the Sharma Lab and a graduate student studying biotechnology and bioinformatics at California State University, Channel Islands. Jemima is investigating chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity using iPSCs.

Lauren Wiegand is an undergraduate research intern in the Sharma Lab majoring in biology at UCLA. Lauren is interested in stem cell biology, drug cardiotoxicity and space biosciences.