Sr. Research & Post Doctoral

Shyamali Jayasena
Senior Research Associate
 

Shyamali Jayasena joined FARRP as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in January 2017 and became a Senior Research Associate in October 2021. She received her initial training on the study of food allergens during her Master’s degree at Florida State University under the supervision of Dr. Shridhar Sathe. She continued her research training on food allergens for her Doctoral Degree at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, under the supervision of Dr. Joe Baumert and Dr. Steve Taylor, receiving her Ph.D. in December 2016.

Shyamali’s research interests include studying the effects of processing on the detection and recovery of allergens using immunochemical methods, and the development of robust and sensitive immunochemical assays for the detection of food allergens especially in food matrices that have undergone processing. Her work aims to advance the currently existing gaps in the detection of food allergens especially in processed foods. She is also interested in the purification and immunochemical and biochemical characterization of food allergens.

Justin Marsh
Senior Research Associate
 

Justin Marsh joined FARRP in June 2015 as a Post-doctoral Fellow. He joined Prof. Phil Johnson's group with the goal of using mass spectrometry proteomic techniques in further characterizing and quantifying allergenic risk. Justin became a Senior Research Associate in February 2020.

His research interests in allergen purification and reactivity began at Rothamsted Research (UK) and specifically include the seed storage proteins, the major allergenic proteins in plant seed, and their post-translational modification (including phosphorylation; glycosylation and sub-unit generation) which can cause increased reactivity.

He was awarded his Ph.D. in plant biochemistry from the Glasgow University (UK) in 2003.

He is experienced in project management, general molecular biological and proteomic techniques, in particular liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, ELISA, immunoblotting, post-translational modification elucidation (kinase assays and glycan analysis), recombinant protein expression and biophysical and biochemical protein characterization.

Natalia Gutierrez Pinto
Postdoctoral Research Associate
 

Natalia Gutierrez-Pinto obtained her Ph.D. in biological sciences from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She specializes in using multi-omic datasets to test biological hypothesis, integrating tools from evolutionary biology, bioinformatics, and biostatistics. Her current research at FARRP involves the use of bioinformatic techniques to facilitate the assessment of potential allergenicity in novel food proteins.

Jitendra Kumar Verma
Postdoctoral Research Associate
 

Updated 12 April, 2024