Gaskill Lab News Archives
December 2024
Go Tofunmi!!! She received the Mary Shaw Travel award from the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Drexel University College of Medicine!!!!
So proud of both Breana and Marzieh, who received travel awards to attend ASPET in Portland in 2025!!!!
November 2024
Gaskill lab showcased our work at Discovery Day and the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society (MAPS) this year. Congratulations to Tofunmi, who received honorable mention at Discovery Day!!!
Incredibly excited to show off Breana Channers recent work on how "Culture Media and Serum Conditions Alter Primary Human Macrophage Morphology and Inflammatory Function" currently out as a preprint.
September 2024
Congratulations to Tofunmi, who won the senior graduate student poster competition at Gliadelphia!!!!
August 2024
Tremendously proud and excited to announce that Breana Channer received her F30 fellowship to study how "Dopaminergic immunomodulation drives macrophage inflammation during HIV infection." Go Breana!!!!
July 2024
Incredibly proud of Marzieh Daniali, who passed her qualifying exam !!!
Our collaboration with Dr. Schlachetzki on "Gene expression and chromatin conformation of microglia in virally suppressed people with HIV" was published in Life Science Alliance. .
June 2024
Congratulations to Yash Agarwal, who absolutely crushed his qualifying exam !!!
Dr. Stephanie Matt published her extensive study on the influence of specific dopamine receptors on IL-1b expression in different types of myeloid cells as a preprint, with the full publication coming soon!!!
May 2024
Tofunmi Oteju wins 3rd place in the Neuropharmacology Division Poster competition at ASPET 2024
Dr. Gaskill is approved for tenure at Drexel University.
Congratulations to our recent graduates, Dr. Teresa Lupone and Dayna Robinson, who will be recognized at Drexel University College of Medicines Commencement celebration on May 9th.
Dr. Matt is presenting her work on "Myeloid Inflammation and Viral Infection in the Context of Comorbid HIV and Depression" at the NIMH seminar series on May 8th
Our recent review "Dopamine, Immunity and Disease" - led by Breana Channer and Dr. Stephanie Matt - is honored as a highly cited paper at Drexels Annual Celebrating Drexel Authors event !!
April 2024
Tofunmi, was selected to give an oral presentation at the Philadelphia Society for Neuroscience meeting here at Drexel on April 19th!!! Way to go Tofunmi!!!
March 2024
Tofumni Oteju, Breana Channer and Marzieh Daniali all gave incredible oral presentations at thethe 2024 Society for Neuroimmune Pharmacology meeting in Charleston, South Carolina!!! Breann spoke during a symposium on "Immune-dopaminergic interactions in neurological disorders", while Marzieh and Tofunmi both spoke at the student oral showcase session.
Dr. Gaskill submitted a multi-PI R01 with Drs. Barker and Schlachetzki on Cross-model investigation on the role of inflammasomes in the neurobehavioral and transcriptomic effects of cocaine exposure and HIV infection
Tofunmi Oteju was selected to present her work on the effect of cocaine on HIV infection on microglia at the Merck Student Showcase!!!
January 2024
Congratulations again to Tofunmi, who received a Travel Award to attend the 2024 American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics meeting in May!!
Congratulations to both Tofunmi and Marzieh for receiving a Travel Awards and oral presentations for the upcoming Society for Neuroimmune Pharmacology Meeting in in Charleston this March!!
Welcome to our new rotation students, Elizabeth Homer and Aarohee Bhattarai, we are thrilled for you to join our group!!
December 2023
Congratulations Breana for receiving a Deans' travel Award to attend the upcoming Society for Neuroimmune Pharmacology Meeting in March!!!
Dr. Gaskill chaired a great symposium on "neuro"-immunomodulation at the 5th annual Immunomodulation and Engineering Symposium at Drexel.
November 2023
Dr. Gaskill and Dr. Marcondes proposal for a symposium on "Immune-dopaminergic interactions in neurological disorders” was accepted and will be featured at the upcoming Society for Neuroimmune Pharmacology Meeting in Charleston!!!
October 2023
Huge congratulations to Teresa, who successfully defended her thesis "Development of a High Throughput High Content Imaging Viral Titer Assay to Investigate the Effect of Substance Misuse on HIV-1 Replicative Dynamics in hMDMs" !!!
Congratulations to Alexis for resubmitting her F31!!!
Incredibly thrilled to be heading the Drexel portion of a newly funded collaborative R61 led by Drs. Cagla Espinoza, Kelly Jordan This project will develop new multimodal profiling pipelines to better define the role of microglia in HIV neuropathogenesis during substance misuse.
September 2023
Huge congratulations to Tofumi, who absolutely crushed her qualifying exam this month !!!
Breana resubmitted her F30, congratulations!!
August 2023
Was a relatively quiet month ... would that we had more like this one.
July 2023
Congratulations to Dayna Robinson on her successful defense of her thesis entitled "Defining The Signaling Mechanisms By Which Dopamine Stimulates Akt Activation in Primary Human Macrophages."'
Congratulations to Dr. Stephanie Matt on her promotion to Research Assistant Professor!!!
Joanna Canagarajah, a former lab member who is now in Ross medical school, won first place for her research presentation of the the data she generated working in the Gaskill lab from 2021 - 2022. Congratulations Joanna!!!
June 2023
The Gaskill lab received a new R61/R33 award from NIDA to study the impact of stimulant evoked dopamine release on the development of neuroHIV!!!
Dr. Stephanie Matt, Breana Channer and Alexis Brantly presented posters at the annual PNIRS meeting in Boulder, Colorado.
May 2023
Breana Channer, Dayna Robinson and Dr. Stephanie Matt presented their posters at the 2023 ASPET meeting.
Dr. Stephanie Matt received a K01 from the NIMH to study the impact of anti-depressants on inflammation and HIV infection in macrophages!!!!!
April 2023
Dr. Gaskill speaking on keynote panel at the Drexel Emerging Graduate Scholars Conference (DEGS) on April 20th. You can watch the panel here.
March 2023
Congratulations to Dr. Stephanie Matt for receiving a catecholamine society fellowship and being selected for an oral presentation at the annual ASPET meeting!!!
February 2023
Congratulations to Tofunmi Oteju for passing her preliminary exam!!!
January 2023
Congratulations to Dayna Robinson for receiving an ASPET travel award to attend the 2023 ASPET meeting in St. Louis!!!
Our newest review "Dopamine, Immunity and Disease" is published in pharmacological reviews .. this review is a beast and was 2 years in the making!!!! Congratulations to all authors, particularly Breana Channer and Dr. Stephanie Matt, who led the effort.
Dr. Stephanie Matt receives a pilot award from the Temple / Drexel Comprehensive NeuroAIDs Center!!
Congratulations to Alexis Brantly, Breana Channer, and Stephanie Matt on their successful submission of F and K fellowships!!
November 2022
Congratulations to Breana Channer for receiving the Drexel Alumni Association Travel Award!!!
October 2022
Breana Channer wins 3rd place for her poster presentation at Discovery Day!!! Congratulations Breana!!!
Alexis Brantly, Breana Channer, Teresa Lupone, Dayna Robinson and Tofunmi Oteju present posters from the Gaskill Lab at Discovery day 2022.
Breana Channer, Alexis Brantly, Tofunmi Oteju attend HCS101 in Pittsburgh to further develop the Gaskill Lab capacity for high content imaging and analysis.
High content imaging work from the Gaskill Lab published in paper accepted to Mucosal Immunology on "Severity of neonatal influenza infection is driven by type I interferon and oxidative stress" from the Carey Lab.
September 2022
Dr. Gaskill gives a seminar entitled "Myeloid Dopamine Receptors Drive Inflammation through non-cannonical signaling pathways" at Europhysiology2022 in Copenhagen.
Drs. Gaskill and Klase receive a five-year NIH R01 from the National Institutes of Drug Abuse entitled "Benzodiazepine mediated mechanisms of transcriptional semi-quiescence in discrete myeloid populations." This research will focus on the HIV replication dynamics in primary macrophages and syngeneic, iPSC-derived macrophages and microglia, evaluating these processes and how they are affected by benzodiazepines.
Dr. Gaskill publishes an opinion paper in Current Opinion in Neurobiology with Dr. Khoshbouei. This paper, entitled "Dopamine and norepinephrine are embracing their immune side and so should we" focuses on the growing understanding of the immunologic role of catecholamines.
August 2022
Congratulations to Breana Channer for her appointment as a National Research Service Award (NRSA) pre-doctoral fellow on Drexel University’s Interdisciplinary and Translational Research Training Grant in NeuroAIDS, funded by the National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Mental Health grant T32-MH079785).
October 2021
Breana Channer receives 3rd place for her poster presentation on "Optimizing culture conditions for measurement of human monocyte derived macrophage inflammatory activity" at Discovery Day 2021!!
Dr. Emily Nickoloff-Bybel finished her last day in the Gaskill Lab and is moving on to the University of Pennsylvania to do her post-doctoral training with Dr. Kelly Jordan-Sciutto. Congratulations Dr. Nickoloff-Bybel!!
Dr. Stephanie Matt published her review about "Targeting neurotransmitter-mediated inflammatory mechanisms of psychiatric drugs to mitigate the double burden of multimorbidity and polypharmacy" in Brain, Behavior and Immunity - Health.
September 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Emily Nickoloff-Bybel, who defended a fantastic thesis entitled "The Impact of Dopamine Receptor Signaling on Myeloid Cell Function: Implications for the Pathogenesis of NeuroHIV." Fantastic job Emily!!!!
The Gaskill Lab is looking to hire a new lab technician to work with both the Gaskill and Klase labs on projects involving the isolation, infection and analysis of immune cells from human blood. Please reach out to us if you are interested.
Dr. Stephanie Matt published an excellent review in Brain, Behavior and Immunity - Health on "Targeting neurotransmitter-mediated inflammatory mechanisms of psychiatric drugs to mitigate the double burden of multimorbidity and polypharmacy". Well-done Stephanie!!!
COVID News Blackout
December 2020
Hannah Johnson receives Winter Term Mini-grant from Drexel to continue her senior thesis research doing high-content analysis of dopamine mediated changes in NF-kB activity in macrophages
November 2020
Dr. Gaskill is receives the New Investigator of the Year award from Drexel University College of Medicine.
Drs. Gaskill and Matt receive a grant from the W.W. Smith Charitable Trust Foundation for which Dr. Matt will lead a project examining "Dopamine induced by substance abuse exacerbates HIV-associated neuroinflammation through epigenetic regulation"
September 2020
An R01 collaboration on the impact of cannabidiol on HIV-associated inflammation with Dr. Dionna Williams at Johns Hopkins is funded. Dr. Gaskill is a co-I and will be investigating changes in the function of tissue specific macrophages in response to SIV, ART and cannabidiol.
June 2020
Lab resumes operation at 33% capacity on June 15th
May 2020
Emily Nickoloff-Bybel and Dr. Stephanie Matt present posters at the Virtual Dopamine meeting (ViDA) on May 19th
March 2020
Lab pauses operation for COVID-19 on March 18th
Received Notice of Award for NIDA R21 examining the impact of dopamine on IL-1beta production mediated by NF-kB and the NLRP3 inflammasome
Emily Nickoloff-Bybel gives a fantastic works-in-progress on her studies examining the molecular mechanisms underlying the dopamine mediated increase in HIV entry
February 2020
Samy Manikanda is awared the Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship (MSSRF).
Kimberley Bonar will return to the Gaskill Lab this summer as a part of Drexel's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program.
December 2019
Emily Nickoloff-Bybel is awarded the Mary Shaw travel award.
Rotation Student Katelyn Reeb successfully gave her rotation talk on the NLRP3 Inflammasome.
Dr. Peter Gaskill gave a talk about the role of dopamine in NeuroHIV at the Puerto Rico Neuroscience Conference on December 7th, 2019.
November 2019
Hannah Johnson is awarded First Place in the Undergraduate Poster presentation at Discovery Day 2019
Dr. Stephanie Matt, Emily Nickoloff-Bybel, Hannah Johnson and Katie Reeb present posters at Discovery Day.
Yi Rong successfully defends his master's thesis entitled "High-Content Screening Analysis of Dopamine-Mediated Changes in Human Macrophages in the context of HIV infection."
October 2019
Peter Gaskill, Emily Nickoloff-Bybel, Stephanie Matt and Hannah Johnson will present posters at the annual Society for Neuroscience in Chicago on Wednesday afternoon, October 23.
Gaskill Lab attends the annual CX7 users conference at the Forrestal convention center in Princeton, NJ.
Emily Nickoloff-Bybel presents "Dopamine increases HIV entry into macrophages via an alternative, calcium dependent pathway" at the annual Institute for Molecular Medicine and Infectious Disease HIV symposium
Emily Nickoloff-Bybel wins 2nd place for her poster presentation on the role of calcium signaling in the dopamine mediated increase in HIV infection at the Mid-Atlantic Pharmacology Society (MAPS-ASPET) at Temple University
September 2019
Dr. Peter Gaskill presents "The role of dopamine in modulating the NF-kB and inflammasome pathways in macrophages" at the Drexel Immunomodulation seminar series
August 2019
Emily Nickoloff-Bybel's study "Dopamine increases HIV entry into macrophages by increasing calcium release via an alternative signaling pathway" is accepted to Brain, Behavior and Immunity.
Dr. Stephanie Matt's newest paper entitled "Dopaminergic impact of cART and anti-depressants on HIV Neuropathogenesis in older adults" is published in Brain Research.
Emily Nickoloff-Bybel is chosen as a National Research Service Award (NRSA) pre-doctoral fellow on Drexel University’s Interdisciplinary and Translational Research Training Grant in NeuroAIDS.
June 2019
Dr. Stephanie Matt receives the 2019 Brody Family Medical Trust Fellowship
May 2019
Dr. Peter J. Gaskill is featured in "The Drive To Know" in this months Drexel University College of Medicine Alumni Magazine.
Our latest article, "Where is Dopamine and how do Immune cells See it?: Dopamine-Mediated Immune cell functions in health and disease." was published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology.
April 2019
Rachel Nolan successfully defends her thesis entitled "Role of Dopamine in the Modulation of Macrophage-Mediated Inflammation: Implications for the Neuropathogenesis of NeuroHIV and Drug Abuse."