People

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.

joldak@usc.edu

(323) 442-1759

Marziyeh Aghazadeh

Research lab specialist

Marziyeh is a dentist and oral medicine specialist who earned her D.D.S. and M.Sc. from Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 2008 and 2012, respectively. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), she joined Dr. Paine’s lab at CCMB in 2023 as a research lab specialist and transitioned to Dr. Oldak’s lab in 2024. Her research focuses on hard tissue regeneration in the craniofacial region, utilizing biomaterials that release stimulatory agents to regenerate enamel, dentin, and critical-sized bone defects.
 

maghazad@usc.edu

(323) 442-3192

Rucha Bapat

Postdoctoral Scholar - research Associate

Rucha is a dentist by training and received her Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) from Dr. D Y Patil Dental College, Pune, India. She graduated with an M.S. and Ph.D. in Craniofacial Biology from Dr. Janet Oldak’s lab in 2020. After completing a postdoc in Dr. Michael Paine’s lab at CCMB, she joined Dr. Oldak’s lab in July 2024 for her second postdoc studying the protein ameloblastin and its role in enamel formation.

ruchabap@usc.edu

(323) 442-2701

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.

kegulian@usc.edu

(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.

nowotny@usc.edu

(269) 845-5207

Gayathri Visakan

Postdoctoral scholar - research Associate

Gayathri is an internationally trained dentist, passionate about studying enamel development with the aim to develop strategies to better address dental caries, and developmental enamel defects. She completed her PhD training under Dr. Oldak’s guidance during which time she developed an in vitro 3D cell culture-based system to model interactions of the enamel matrix protein ameloblastin with ameloblast cells.

visakan@usc.edu

(323) 442-3192

Alumni

Nahid Akhter
Scott Barlow
Saeed A. Bigdeli
Jing Cai
Amrita Chakraborty
Anna Kallistová
Kaushik Mukherjee
Sohaib Naim
Judith Naziri
Yeojung Park
Saumya Prajapati
Qichao Ruan
Garima Sandhu
Edwin Sarkisians
Changyu Shao
Jingtan Su