Rick Willis, Ph.D.
Technical Director
Rick Willis received a Ph.D. in immunology from University of Rochester and postdoctoral training in cellular immunology at National Jewish Health. Among other things, he produced MHC tetramers in baculovirus-infected insect cells for his work on CD8 T cell competition. As technical director he supervises the lab and works on new methods for MHC tetramer construction and purification since joining the group in 2009.

Dale Long
Facility Manager
Dale Long graduated with dual majors in Biology and Psychology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1998. He began work in December of 1998 with John Altman’s laboratory, and was part of the original crew at the inception of the Tetramer Core Facility in 1999 as a Class I production technician.  He is the primary developer and maintainer of the facility's production database.  He recently became the Facility Manager in December of 2010.

Vasanthi Govindu, Ph.D.
Affiliate Scientist
Vasanthi Govindu joined the NIH Tetramer Facility in 2004 with extensive experience in protein production, purification and characterization. She developed the streptavidin-small molecule fluorophore conjugates now used by the Facility for tetramer labeling. In addition to working as a Staff Scientist in the protein engineering group at Ambion, Inc, Vasanthi received postdoctoral training at Washington State University and the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D in Biochemistry from Indian Institute of Science, India.

Ge (Gina) Bai, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
Gina Bai received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from University of Miami, her post-graduate studies including protein purifications and molecular cloning. She developed research projects in several biomedical fields, and optimized recombinant protein and monoclonal antibody expression in various systems. She works on Lentivirus production, generation of new MHC class II expression cell lines, and research projects to improve MHC class II molecule production since joining the group in 2010.

Donielle Bell
Research Technical Specialist
Donielle Bell graduated with a major in Biology from Emory University in 1998. She joined the staff of Dr. John Altman's laboratory in May 1998, and in 1999 began work at the Tetramer Core as part of the original team of technicians and researchers. Donielle primarily works with class I production of tetramers and shipment to clients, as well as subcloning client-provided alleles, expanding the number of class I alleles available from the facility.

Lixia Han
Lead Research Specialist
Lixia Han joined the Tetramer Core Facility as her first job in the U.S. in the spring of 2004. She started with cloning and ordering lab supplies, and added over the years cell culturing, lab maintenance, and DNA preparation for class II production.

Olga Pryshchep
Lead Research Specialist
Olga Pryshchep graduated from Belarus State University in 1997 with a Master’s degree in Biology and specialization in Genetics. After postgraduate training in Microbiology and extensive bench experience in Immunology, she joined the NIH Tetramer Facility in August 2009. Her responsibilities include production of lentivirus-transduced cell lines for expression of recombinant proteins, ELISA, purification of Class II monomers and inclusion body preps for Class I production.

Amy Wang
Lead Research Specialist
Amy Wang received her M.D. from Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University. She began to work in the NIH Tetramer Facility in August of 2009. Her duties include class II purification, cell culture, and class I monomer production.

Jeff Levene
Website Developer
Jeff Levene has been developing software for over 20 years, websites for 10, and has been the lead developer for four companies.  As webmaster of this site beginning in 2010, he is dedicated to making it more functional and easier to use.  Jeff’s degree is in Physics, from Brown University.