Janet Moradian-Oldak
Principal Investigator
Janet Moradian-Oldak is a professor in the Division of Biomedical Sciences, Ostrow School of Dentistry, University of Southern California with a joint appointment in the Biomedical Engineering Department, Viterbi School of Engineering. She has completed her B.Sc degree in Chemistry in the Ben Gurion University, a master degree in Structural Chemistry, and a Ph.D degree from the Department of Structural Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.
Dr. Oldak has published more than 120 articles and a few patents. Among many awards and honors Prof Oldak earned the IADR Basic Research in Biological Mineralization Distinguished Scientist Award in 2019. She is the 2019 Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She has served on many scientific organizations such as IADR, AADR, and AAAS, as well as on editorial board of Journals. She is currently the president of ICCBMT and chair of GRC in Biomineralization 2022.
(323) 442-1759
Jing Cai
Postdoctoral fellow
Jing Cai graduated with a B.S. in Dental Surgery (BDS) from Wuhan University and received a Ph.D. in Dental Sciences from the University of Melbourne. Her research interest focuses on the remineralization of dental hard tissues and her current research project is to use amelogenin-derived peptides for dentine treatments.
(323) 442-3170
Natalie C. Kegulian
Postdoctoral research fellow
Natalie C. Kegulian is a Trojan through and through, with B.S. and Ph.D. degrees both from USC. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on the structures and conformations of amyloid proteins. Still avidly interested in proteins that assemble and shapeshift, she is now unveiling localized structural changes in ameloblastin that occur upon interactions with different partners in the enamel organ.
(323) 442-3192
Erika Bauza Nowotny
PhD student – research assistant
Erika Bauza Nowotny graduated with a B.S in biotechnology and an M.S in Biology from Andrews University. In Dr. Oldak’s lab, Erika is working to further characterize an amelogenin peptide-based hydrogel and its biomineralization capabilities on enamel.
(269) 845-5207
Gayathri Visakan
Phd Candidate
Gayathri Visakan received her Bachelors’ in Dental Surgery (BDS) from Sri Ramachandra University, Chennai, India. She completed her M.S. in Craniofacial Biology from USC (Fall 2019) and is currently a 3rd year Ph.D. candidate under Dr. Janet Oldak’s mentorship. At Dr. Oldak’s lab, she studies the interactions between the enamel matrix protein ameloblastin and the cells that form tooth enamel (ameloblasts).
(323) 442-3192
Alumni
Rucha Arun Bapat
Scott Barlow
Saeed A. Bigdeli
Amrita Chakraborty
Anna Kallistová
Kaushik Mukherjee
Sohaib Naim
Judith Naziri
Yeojung Park
Saumya Prajapati
Qichao Ruan
Garima Sandhu
Changyu Shao
Nahid Akhter
