Our Staff

Stefan Green, PhD

Stefan J. Green, PhD

Director, Research Specimen Processing and Shipping Laboratory
Director of Core Laboratory Services
Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine

Stefan_Green@rush.edu

Green’s research is focused on the interaction of complex microbial communities with hosts across a range of experimental and diseases systems. He has a B.A. in Earth and Environmental Sciences (Wesleyan University), an M.S. in Environmental Engineering (Northwestern University), and a PhD in Microbiology (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). He has a broad background in microbial ecology and molecular biology, with an emphasis on the acquisition and analysis of next-generation sequence data from biological systems. As Co-Principal Investigator of RIPHL, a public-academic partnership between RUSH University and the Chicago Department of Public Health, his laboratory performs surveillance and outbreak sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from viral transport medium as well as other pathogens of public health relevance. Green is funded on research projects studying the mammalian gut microbiome under spaceflight conditions, gut microbiome in traumatic brain injury, gut microbiome in Alzheimer’s Disease, vaginal microbiome and bacterial vaginosis, and more. Previously, Green was director of the Genome Research Core at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

Green can assist with project design, project submission, assay design, grant and manuscript support (letters of support, text for grants and manuscripts, etc.).

Selected Publications

  1. Garrett-Bakelman, F.E., Darshi, M., Green, S.J., Gur, R.C., Lin, L., Macias, B.R., McKenna, M.J., Meydan, C., Mishra, T., Nasrini, J. and Piening, B.D., 2019. The NASA Twins Study: A multidimensional analysis of a year-long human spaceflight. Science, 364(6436), p.eaau8650.
  2. Keshavarzian, A., Green, S.J., Engen, P.A., Voigt, R.M., Naqib, A., Forsyth, C.B., Mutlu, E. and Shannon, K.M., 2015. Colonic bacterial composition in Parkinson's disease. Movement Disorders, 30(10), pp.1351-1360.
  3. Naqib, A., Poggi, S. and Green, S.J., 2019. Deconstructing the Polymerase Chain Reaction II: an improved workflow and effects on artifact formation and primer degeneracy. PeerJ, 7, p.e7121.
  4. Ofek-Lalzar, M., Sela, N., Goldman-Voronov, M., Green, S.J., Hadar, Y. and Minz, D., 2014. Niche and host-associated functional signatures of the root surface microbiome. Nature communications, 5(1), pp.1-9.

Complete list of publications on Google Scholar

Cheryl Jennings, BS

Senior Manager of Laboratory Operations, Clinical Retrovirology Research Laboratory

Cheryl_Jennings@rush.edu

Jennings has 30+ years of experience in the laboratory. She is the primary contact for questions related to establishing relationships with the CRRL and setting up new protocols.

Selected publications

  1. Kim DY, Lin MY, Jennings C, Li H, Jung JH, Moore NM, Ghinai I, Black SR, Zaccaro DJ, Brofman J, Hayden MK. Duration of replication-competent SARS-CoV-2 shedding among patients with severe or critical coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Clin Infect Dis. 2022 May 24;. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciac405. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 35607802; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9213867.
  2. Rodgers MA, Olivo A, Harris BJ, Lark C, Luo X, Berg MG, Meyer TV, Mohaimani A, Orf GS, Goldstein Y, Fox AS, Hirschhorn J, Glen WB, Nolte F, Landay A, Jennings C, Moy J, Servellita V, Chiu C, Batra R, Snell LB, Nebbia G, Douthwaite S, Tanuri A, Singh L, de Oliveira T, Ahouidi A, Mboup S, Cloherty GA. Detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants by Abbott molecular, antigen, and serological tests. J Clin Virol. 2022 Feb;147:105080. doi: 10.1016/j.jcv.2022.105080. Epub 2022 Jan 20. PubMed PMID: 35086043; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8770247.
  3. Engen PA, Naqib A, Jennings C, Green SJ, Landay A, Keshavarzian A, Voigt RM. Nasopharyngeal Microbiota in SARS-CoV-2 Positive and Negative Patients. Biol Proced Online. 2021 Jun 1;23(1):10. doi: 10.1186/s12575-021-00148-6. PubMed PMID: 34058978; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8166531.
  4. Jennings C, Parkin NT, Zaccaro DJ, Capina R, Sandstrom P, Ji H, Brambilla DJ, Bremer JW. Application of a Sanger-Based External Quality Assurance Strategy for the Transition of HIV-1 Drug Resistance Assays to Next Generation Sequencing. Viruses. 2020 Dec 17;12(12). doi: 10.3390/v12121456. Review. PubMed PMID: 33348705; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7766986.

Complete list of publications on MyBibliography

Jakob Stricker, BS

Stricker has a BS in Biology and joined the RUSH team in January of 2016.

Farrah Bilimoria, BS

Bilimoria has a BS in Biology and joined the RUSH team in May 2021.

Jimena Torres, BS

Torres has a BS in Biology and joined the RUSH team in September 2021.