AMPL 2003
 Applied Molecular
Photomedicine Laboratory
Forsyth 1910

Research Associates


Abraham Abernethy

Abe Abernethy earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in May, 2002. He performed research in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Sydney, Australia. He worked in AMPL as a Research Assistant (2003-2004) and Lab Manager (2004-2005) with major contribution to the growth of our lab.

Karriann Ruggiero

Karriann Ruggiero earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Northeastern University in 2005. She worked in AMPL as a Research Assistant (2003-2005) and Research Associate / Lab Manager (2005-2007) with major contribution to the establishment of key projects. She has been the lab member with the longest service.

Sovanda Som

Sovanda Som earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology (2000) and her Masters Degree in Bioinformatics (2001) from Northeastern University. She worked in AMPL as a Research Associate and Lab Manager for 2 years (2002-2004) with major contribution to the establishment of our lab.

Research Assistants


Stephanie Doucette

Stephanie Doucette earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from Boston University (2005). She worked in AMPL as a research assistant (2004-2006).

Phillip Kyriakakis

Phillip Kyriakakis finished the Massachusetts Bay Community College Wellesley, MA (2004) and worked as a research assistant in AMPL in summer 2004.

Vinicius Rengal Geraldo-Martins

Vinicius Geraldo-Martins earned a Dental degree from Araraquara School of Dentistry, in Brazil and a Masters of Science degree from the Energy and Nuclear Research Institute (IPEN). He joined AMPL as a research scholar in 2005 and worked in our lab for 5 months.

Graduate Students


Jacob Fimple

MMSc student

Jacob Fimple is a graduate of Creighton University school of Dentistry where he earned a D.D.S. degree in May of 2005. He completed a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He carried out his Master's Project in AMPL concerning the use of photodynamic therapy to eradicate multi-species biofilms in the dental root canal system (2006-2008)

Peter Chen

Peter Chen earned a Dental degree from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine (2001) and a certificate in Endodontics and a Master's degree in Medical Science from Harvard University School of Dental Medicine (2004). He carried out his Master's project in AMPL concerning the use of photodynamic therapy to eradicate bacterial biofilms in the dental root canal system (2003-2004).

Jason Morris

Jason Morris earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Zoology at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in 1997. He later attended Creighton University School of Dentistry in Omaha, Nebraska and earned his D.D.S. degree in 2002. He earned a certificate in Endodontics and a Master's degree in Medical Science from Harvard University School of Dental Medicine ( 2005). He carried out his Master's project in AMPL regarding the use of photodynamic therapy to eradicate bacterial biofilms in the dental root canal system (2004-2005).

Reza Riahi

Reza Riahi is a graduate of the University of the Pacific School of Dentistry where he earned a D.D.S. degree in June of 2004. He completed a Bachelor of Science Degree in Systems Physiology and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Biochemistry at San Jose State University. He earned a certificate in Endodontics and a Master's Degree in Medical Science from Harvard University School of Dental Medicine (2007). He carried out his Master's project in AMPL using photodynamic therapy to eradicate bacterial biofilms in the dental root canal system (2005-2007).

Tony Vera

Tony Vera studied dentistry at the University of the Pacific in San Francisco, California. He graduated from Pacific in June of 2004 and earned his D.D.S. Degree and a BA in Applied Science. He earned a certificate in Endodontics and a Master's Degree in Medical Science from Harvard University School of Dental Medicine (2007).He carried out his Master's project in AMPL that concerned the development of a dental root canal biofilm model for in vitro testing of various antimicrobial strategies (2005-2007).

High School Students


Jonathan Fine

Interested in Biochemistry, Jonathan Fine entered the Forsyth Inst. at the begining of Summer 2003. Freshly out of high school, Jonathan wanted to expand his awareness of field research in the area of biochemistry and photomedicine before begining as a freshman at Boston University and a degree in Biochemistry or related fields.

Sarah Kumar

Sarah is currently a senior at South Brunswick High School, and will be applying to college in the fall. She has completed a summer internship at the Forsyth Institute (2007), designed to to give potential researchers more experience in a laboratory environment. In the future, she would like to become a physician-scientist with expertise in pain management.

Dental Students


Ryan Blissett

Ryan Blissett earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Human Biology from Michigan State University in 2002 and a dental degree from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine (2006). He worked in AMPL as a research assistant in photobiology (2003-2006).

Sean Connolly

Sean Connolly, a student at the Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health (ASDOH), graduated from The College of William and Mary with a BA in Economics and earned an MBA from the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. Before entering dental school, Sean was a helicopter pilot in the US Army and held sales and business development positions with AT&T and Scientific-Atlanta. Sean has completed a summer course at the Forsyth Institute (2007) designed to acquaint potential future researchers with the laboratory setting.

Post-Docs

Yan Xu

Yan Xu attended the Kunming Medical College in China where she earned her Medical Degree. She is lecturer in the Department of of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, The Kunming Medical Hospital. She worked in AMPL on a project concerning phototargeting of periodontal inflammation (2007-2008)

Carla Fontana

Carla Fontana earned a Dental degree and a Masters of Science degree from the University of Sao Paulo. In 2007 she was awarded a PhD from the university of Sao Paulo. She joined AMPL as a research scholar in 2005. For three years she has worked, as a principal investigator, on many key projects related to photoinactivation of bacteria in various oral infections. Her contribution to the growth of AMPL was significant and is highly appreciated.

Makoto Ogura

Makoto Ogura earned Bachelor and Master of Engineering degrees in Electronics & Electrical Engineering from Keio University. In 2004 he earned his PhD in Electronics & Electrical Engineering, Keio University. He worked in AMPL for 6 months (2004) studying the photomechanical wave-assisted drug delivery in microbial biofilms.

Federico Foschi

Federico Foschi attended the University of Bologna – Alma Mater Studiorum in Italy, where he earned the Dental Degree in 2002. In 2006 he was awarded a PhD from the University of Bologna in Medical Biotechnology. He has worked as a PhD student at The Forsyth Institute (2004-2006). He contributed to the AMPL as a post-doctoral research fellow (2006-2007) working on various projects concerning the phototargeting of oral infectious diseases.