People

2024: Tiffany Bastos, Amina Jumamyradova, Alexey Soshnev, Cameron M. Chapa, Dustin Fetch, Gauri Raje, Natalie Redding, and Ksenia Dydo

Tiffany Bastos

research assistant

Tiffany Bastos received an undergrad degree at Rutgers University majoring in Biology. She is currently working towards a MS degree in Biotechnology at Johns Hopkins University. Somehow, she manages to work full-time in the lab as well, studying how chromatin is affected by changes in polyamine levels, and managing lab daily routines. After receiving her Masters, she plans on attending medical school for Trauma Surgery. 

She loves to garden and bake macarons during her free time. She also loves to travel, and has visited 6 out of the 7 continents.


Ksenia Dydo

undergraduate student

Ksenia Dydo is an undergraduate student at UTSA studying Microbiology and Immunology as well as Math. In the lab, she is working on a protein biochemistry of H1 proteins, and is aour resident expert in recombinant protein expression and purification.

Upon completing undergrad, Ksenia plans on entering a post-bacc or masters program to ultimately pursue an MD/PhD. In her free time, she enjoys cooking and reading.


Dustin R. Fetch 

graduate student

Dustin Fetch received his M.S. and B.S. in Biology from The University of Texas at San Antonio. He is interested in understanding how missense mutations in histones result in a loss of function phenotype that drive malignant transformation

Outside of lab Dustin enjoys spending time with friends, family, and his three dogs.



Amina Jumamyradova

research associate

Amina Jumamyradova graduated from UTSA with a B.S. in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology in 2024.  During her undergraduate she was a MARC-2 program scholar under the NIH Training and Workforce Development division. She joined Soshnev Lab during her junior year of undergraduate and decided to stay in the lab after graduation as a Research Assistant. In the lab Amina studies mechanistic effects of mutations in H1 histones in developmental disorders. 

Amina wants to pursue a career as a medical doctor. Outside of the lab Amina enjoys photography, thrifting, graphic design, and spending time with friends and family.

Gauri Raje

Biotechnology Masters student

Gauri is a first-year M.S student majoring in Biotechnology. She graduated from UTSA with a B.S. in Biology, and joined our group to figure out how polyamines affect chromatin structure. 

Outside the lab, Gauri likes to read, sketch, paint and visit the library. 

Natalie Redding

undergraduate student

Natalie is a third-year undergraduate at UTSA, majoring in mathematics. In the lab, she is currently working on how histone modifications correlate with (and dictate) cell fate decisions, using taste bud cells as a model

In the future, she plans to pursue a master's degree in genetic counseling. During her free time, she enjoys concerts, books, and coffee. 

Alexey A. Soshnev 

PI

Alexey was born in Russia, where he attended Faculty of Medicine at St. Petersburg State University. During that time, he serendipitously completed a short exchange program with the University of Iowa and decided to pursue a career in research. He completed his PhD with Pam Geyer at Iowa followed by a postdoc with C. David Allis at The Rockefeller University in New York.


Alexey started his lab at UT San Antonio in the Fall of 2022. In his rare free time, he enjoys cooking for his family, stargazing, bugs, and classical music.  Fun fact - he learned English in high school, but mostly got serious about it because of original Baldurs Gate game.

Alumni

Cameron M. Chapa

Cameron received her B.S. in Biochemistry at The University of Texas at Austin  and joined the Soshnev Lab in the Fall of 2022 (as the first lab employee!). She studied how changing H3 K27me3 levels impact pluripotency in mouse embryonic stem cells using wet lab and bioinformatic techniques.   

Cameron is now Women & Science Fellow at The David Rockefeller Graduate Program in Bioscience at The Rockefeller University (New York)