Meet The Team

David B. Frank, MD, PhD, is a physician-scientist and pediatric cardiologist specializing in pulmonary hypertension in the Division of Cardiology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He trained underneath Dr. Ed Morrisey at the University of Pennsylvania and is a member of the Penn Center for Pulmonary Biology and Penn Cardiovascular Institute.  His areas of expertise are pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary vascular remodeling in embryonic development, alveolar epithelial-endothelial interactions, and transitional pulmonary circulation. On the weekends, he stays busy working on remodeling his home, and chasing squirrels off his lawn.

MinQi joined the Frank lab in July of 2017, after working for two decades at the University of North Carolina. Originally from Shanghai, China, he earned his degree in Medical Sciences from the Shanghai Dian Shi University. On the weekends, he enjoys exercising and spending time with his wife Su.   

Prashant is a Research Scientist in Dr. Frank’s lab. He joined the group in April 2020 after earning his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University, where he investigated the importance of collagen V in TMJ development and osteoarthritis progression. His major area of interest now is understanding the pulmonary endothelium development, arterial heterogeneity, changes in cellular programming during the development of pulmonary arterial hypertension with emphasis on endothelial cells. He also provides support in protocol development, training new personnel and collaborates on all projects in the lab. Outside of lab, Prashant loves running behind his toddler, skydiving, driving long distances, hiking, jogging, and reading.

Originally from Boston, MA, Derek earned his BA in Economics and Biology from Boston University and spent his early scientific career developing and applying pluripotent stem cell models of lung and liver diseases. He continued his education at the University of Pennsylvania, completing his PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology determining how cell fate decisions impact lung development and regeneration. Currently, Derek is a postdoctoral fellow investigating cardiopulmonary development and disease.

Nigel is the staff computational biologist for our group. He earned his PhD in Biophysics at the University of Michigan where he studied the effect of gene patterning on fate specification in the fruit fly brain using genetically targeted scRNA-seq and in situ RNA-staining techniques. He now now supports our efforts by developing and performing computational analyses for a variety of -omics datasets,

Maureen Peers de Nieuwburgh, MD, is a Belgian pediatric resident who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. focused on fetal lung development in hypoxic conditions. The artificial womb lamb model used to create fetal hypoxia for her PhD project was elaborated by the Center for Fetal Research at CHOP. Through her ongoing work, Maureen is making significant contributions to our understanding of fetal lung development and its relationship to hypoxia. In addition, her work is helping shed new light on management of fetal lambs in an artificial womb (EXTEND). Outside of work, you can find Maureen hiking, white water rafting, traveling around the world and spending time with family and friends.

Hongbo Wen (Tony) is a lab technician in Dr. Frank’s lab who recently finished his undergraduate journey in University of Pennsylvania with a triple-major in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Economics and a minor in Math. He joined the lab in Spring 2019 with a focus on the Axin2 project, which probes the fate of alveolar cells after neonatal hyperoxia lung injury. Outside of lab, he loves visiting art museums, going to classical music concerts , and cooking with friends.

Sukhmani Kaur recently graduated from The University of Pennsylvania in May 2022 with a B.A. in Neurobiology and a minor in Chemistry. Sukhmani joined the lab in April 2019 and since primarily investigated the role of MESP1 in alveologenesis. Outside of lab, Sukhmani can be found with a camera documenting life. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Buzzfeed, and Penn Today and honored in the 266th UPenn Commencement ceremony. 

Annabelle Jin is an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania who intends to major in Biology, with minors in Medical Anthropology and Asian American Studies. She joined the lab in Jan 2022 and has since then discovered that nothing beats the joy of learning new lab skills, talking about science, and (of course) cleaning lab benches. Outside of the Frank Lab, she is heavily involved in the menstrual equity and reproductive justice spaces and loves reading books about history of medicine/science and Asian American stories.