Our Team
Samuel A Myers, PhD
Assistant Professor
Director of the Laboratory for Immunochemical Circuits, Center for Autoimmunity and Inflammation, Center for Sex-based Differences in the Immune System, Division of Signaling and Gene Expression, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
Adjunct Faculty, Department of Pharmacology, Program in Immunology, and Moores Cancer Center, UCSD
Global Autoimmunity Institute Professor
Biomedical Sciences Program, UCSD
SAM received his B.S. at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He earned his PhD at UCSF in the labs of Al Burlingame and Barbara Panning. SAM did his postdoctoral training with Steve Carr and Aviv Regev at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard for three and a half years, after which he worked as a Staff Scientist for another three and a half . SAM started his lab at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in April 2021. He brings all their equipment on the bus.
Leo Sanchez Solis
Research Technician II
Leo grew up in Houston and obtained his B.S. in Bioengineering at Rice University. Afterward, he spent two years working in the pharmaceutical industry in San Diego and New York through the Pfizer R&D Rotational program. He joined the Myers Lab in July 2024 and is interested in supporting immunology and oncology projects using his background in experimental and computational biology. Leo is focused on applying synthetic biology approaches to explore T cell differentiation and immunoregulatory networks and aims to pursue a PhD in the future to further his research.
Cindy Manriquez Rodriguez
Graduate Student, BMS Program, UCSD
Cindy is a bioengineer from the Autonomous University of Baja California in Mexico. She earned her Master's degree in Life Sciences at the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education with an orientation in Biomedicine and Bionanotechnology. There, she used mass spectrometry to study the changes in the proteome of human cells with different anti-diabetic drugs. Cindy has been a member of Myers lab at La Jolla Institute for Immunology since December 2021.
Owner of 4 dogs, loves long walks, cute stuff, and the color pink, maybe too much [her words].
Maria Matias, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher
Maria originally hails from Portugal via France on her way to LJI as a postdoc. Her interests lie in the metabolic control of T cell differentiation. She enjoys skiing, surfing, oysters (after our first lab outing), and karaoke. She doesnt want to clone her own sgRNAs, but shes gonna and will be so proud after the fact.
Orbitrap Boxing Baby
Lab mascot, Alexander Makarov-approved.
Melina “Mel” Brunelli
Graduate Fellow, BMS Program, UCSD
Mel came to LJI from New York, where she earned her B.S. in Biochemistry from Binghamton University. After joining the Biomedical Sciences Program at UCSD Mel joined the Myers lab June 2023. She is interested in understanding the structural basis and molecular mechanisms of how OGT targets substrates with spatiotemporal specificity. Mel loves fine wine, trashy reality TV, and her cat Pumpkin.
Roberta Nowak
Laboratory Manager-Signaling and Gene Expression/Research Tech IV
Roberta graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology back in the stone age. She’s been working in academic research labs for over 25 years, starting as a technician and then as a lab manager. She joined LJI in 2019 with the Rao and Hogan labs. Over the years, she has enjoyed learning about mouse embryology, cell cytoskeletal structures in red blood cells, the eye lens and skeletal muscle; immunology, cancer biology, and epigenetics. She is a microscopist at heart, a lab manager by day, and mom of a teenager by night. Roberta also provided all photos of San Diego throughout this website.
Jack Hagget, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Jack was born and raised in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He received his bachelor’s degrees in music and chemistry from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Jack received his Ph.D. in Applied Chemistry from the Colorado School of Mines in 2023, where he studied organic synthesis, chemical biology, and cell biology. His research interests include fluorescent probe design, redox biology, and cellular communication. In his free time, Jack enjoys growing houseplants, listening to music, and taking care of his reptiles.
Felipe Vásquez Castro
Graduate Student, BISB program, UCSD
Felipe obtained his Bachelor’s in Chemistry from the University of Costa Rica in 2020, where his fascination with mass spectrometry began during natural products research. He then explored microbiology at CENIBiot in San Jose, Costa Rica until mid-2022, characterizing microbial communities in a Costa Rican cave and isolating over 90 strains, including rare Actinobacteria genera. After transitioning to the PhD program in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology at UC San Diego in 2022, Felipe officially joined the Myers lab in March 2024. He is interested in gene regulatory network inference from phosphoproteomics data using AI.
Aiden Asari
Undergraduate Researcher, UCSD
Originally from LA, Aiden moved to SD for school where he is an undergrad student at UCSD pursuing his bachelor’s degree in Human Biology. He joined the lab in 2024 in hopes of gaining hands-on research experience and exposure to this field in general. He works mainly with Mel in confirming OGT protein interactors. Some of his current interests are basketball, late-night talks, festivals, working out, and skating.
Sabrina Figueroa
Research Technician II
Originally from Guatemala, Sabrian moved to San Diego to earn a B.S. in Bioengineering: Biosystems from UC San Diego. She then spent four years at a biotech startup dedicated to treating autoimmune diseases using a precision medicine approach with companion diagnostics. After completing her M.S. in Drug Development and Product Management at UC San Diego, she’s now eager to explore my scientific curiosities in the lab.
