Olimpia Meucci, MD, PhD
Principal Investigator
Renato Brandimarti, PhD
Visiting Research Associate
Bradley Nash, PhD
Scientific Writer
Jennifer Kelschenbach, PhD
Jennifer Kelschenbach, PhD
Research Associate Professor
E-mail: jk3983@drexel.edu
Jennifer is a research associate professor in the department. She earned a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota and completed postdoctoral training in the Molecular Virology Division at St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. She was then promoted to an associate research scientist and then research assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai before joining Drexel in 2025 as part of the Meucci Lab.
Jennifer has extensively studied HIV-1 and substance use comorbidity in the EcoHIV mouse model. Her work has described how opioids and other substances modulate neuroimmune function, and how this may contribute to HIV associated neurocognitive impairment. She has generated data for opioid- and cocaine-related projects within the SCORCH consortium (Single Cell Opioid Responses in the Context of HIV), and she is an MPI on R01 awards focused on how cannabinoids affect HIV-associated neuroinflammation, and how buprenorphine controls monocyte migration to the brain during HIV infection.
In the Meucci Lab, Jennifer is continuing her studies on buprenorphine and contributing to ongoing translational research on the effects of HIV-infection/substance abuse on neuronal networks and function, using a variety of animal and human-based neuroHIV models.
Biswarup Ghosh, PhD
Biswarup Ghosh, PhD
Research Associate
E-mail: bg822@drexel.edu
Biswarup is a research associate in the Meucci Lab. He earned a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Kalyani (India) and completed postdoctoral training at University of Minnesota and Temple University. He later transitioned to senior scientist roles at Thomas Jefferson University and University of Pennsylvania prior to joining the Meucci Lab in the fall of 2024.
Biswarup has a broad scientific background in the central and peripheral nervous systems. His work has used cutting edge techniques to study the mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, ALS, and ocular diseases. He has extensive experience using viral constructs for gene delivery across in vitro and in vivo model systems. In the Meucci Lab, Biswarup builds on his previous experience to examine how HIV and opioids contribute to neuronal dysfunction and amyloidogenesis, and he works with our human brain slice culture model of neuroHIV as part of the department’s TRaCES initiative.
Chunta Ho, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Waleed Iqbal, PhD
Waleed Iqbal, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
E-mail: wi24@drexel.edu
Waleed is a postdoctoral fellow in the Meucci Lab. He earned a BS in cell & molecular biology from The State University of New York at New Platz before joining Drexel to complete an MS degree in cancer biology and a PhD in bioinformatics.
During his PhD training, Waleed built software pipelines to process and explore multi-omics datasets from primary tumors and metastases. His research in the Meucci Lab spans the fields of cancer and neuroscience. He currently develops software to analyze large datasets of multi-electrode array recordings and publicly available CNS omics datasets to examine how neuroHIV and substance use disorders alter neuronal networks. He is also engaged in long-term collaborative studies on brain malignancies between the Meucci Lab and other groups.
Noor Baban
Medical Student