Lab Members

Elyas Alalli graduated with a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry from California State University, Northridge (CSUN) in 2017. Shortly after, he immersed himself in a niche field of molecular biology, working at a specialty transplant diagnostics lab at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Alalli spent the next four years developing and manufacturing HLA typing SSO kits used by transplant centers across the globe to determine the compatibility of donors and recipients pre-transplant. During this time, he performed periodic lot updates of SSO kits while maintaining an FDA and ISO regulated GMP laboratory. Alalli joined the Bilsborough Lab in 2021 and is currently assisting efforts to develop cell line models and reagents that would facilitate the discovery and development of novel therapeutics for IBD patients.

Jorge Alfaro graduated from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) with a bachelor of science in molecular cell biology & physiology. While at CSULB he worked as an undergraduate NIH-research scholar in an environmental toxicology lab. His primary project was aimed to determine the impact of antimicrobial agents present in personal care products and their effect on hormone/endocrine health. After graduating, he specialized in stem cell research through a CIRM-funded post baccalaureate where he worked on neuroprotective and cell-based therapies for retinal degeneration at Cedars-Sinai. After developing an interest in inflammation, he went on to work in research & development at USC. His primary focus was on small molecule drugs in multiple therapeutic areas of inflammatory-related diseases, including but not limited to arthritis, sepsis and IBD. In the Bilsborough Lab, Jorge will work to support the discovery of new therapeutic targets for IBD through in-vivo and in-vitro modeling.

Marie Fiorino earned a master's degree in biotechnology and an MBA from California State University, Channel Islands. She has 19 years of in vivo biology experience, including seven years in the pathology department of a leading biopharmaceutical company. She specializes in the development of preclinical models within a variety of disease areas, including inflammatory bowel disease, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, diabetes and angiogenesis. She is currently the principal investigator and lead for all in-vivo design and study programs, using her expertise to design functional models that lead to potential new targets for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases.

Brad Henkle has more than 15 years of laboratory experience, including 11 years in biotech. During his tenure in biotech, he developed primary human immune cell assays supporting drug development for inflammatory diseases. Henkle has a bachelor's degree in physiology and cell biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Annabel Iwuchukwu earned her master's degree in neuroscience from King's College London (KCL) and a bachelor's degree in biomedical science from the University of Sheffield, England. Iwuchukwu also undertook a certificate course at UCLA Extension in general business and entrepreneurship. During her degree at KCL, her thesis focused on the localization of Poxn and engrailed expression patterns in the antennal mechanosensory and motor center and wedge of the adult drosophila brain under the supervision of Frank Hirth, PhD. Iwuchukwu performs in vivo experiments on mice to study inflammatory bowel disease and is currently working on evaluating the consequences of gene alterations on the development and severity of colitis using the T cell transfer-induced colitis model.

Arshad Khan, PhD, earned his bachelor's in biochemistry and a graduate degree in molecular and medical pharmacology, both from UCLA. He is a pharmaceutical and biotechnology research professional with 21 years of molecular biology experience. His work at UCLA primarily focused on molecular biology and genetics disciplines. His previous work focused on various neurological and behavioral disorders, (e.g., Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cocaine addiction and others). His expertise in genetics and computational biology helped him to discover genes that are associated with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other neurological disorders, as well as drug actions on genes for cell survival. He is currently a bioinformatic biomedical scientist at Cedars-Sinai and leads all bioinformatics analysis support for omics datasets, particularly the integration of omics datasets (transcriptomic datasets from either bulk or single-cell seq methodologies) of inflammatory bowel disease patients using QTL methods to discover key genes that are associated with inflammatory bowel diseases.

Ignat Printsev, PhD, received his doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California, Davis, studying the cell biology of breast cancer and glioblastoma and how the ubiquitination system contributes to the molecular mechanisms that affect the progression and lethality of these diseases. Printsev completed his postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology under Alexander Varshavsky, PhD. During this time, Printsev developed a new approach for the study of protein fragments and their functions in cells and in vivo, with a specific focus on the regulation and biology of hemichannels. Currently, he works in the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Drug Discovery and Development unit to develop novel therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease patients, utilizing the approaches of personalized medicine.