🎙️ Sam attends the Keystone Symposium on B and T Cell Collaboration in Lymphoid and Nonlymphoid Microenvironments, with the NIAID-funded Keystone Symposia Scholarship.

🍺 Sam is awarded the Mary Ellis Bell Prize for his paper.

📝 Leena submits her paper — congratulations!

🎙️ Yi attends CROI 2026 and receives the New Investigator Scholarship.

🌎 We welcome Davi Nunes as the lab’s third Researcher of the Future.

🔬 We welcome our newest IGG rotation student, Kaila Powell.

🎙️ Kingsley, Leena, and Ben attend the 2025 ASH Annual Meeting.

📝 Sam submits his paper — congratulations!

💍 We celebrate our second lab wedding — congratulations to Sam & Lydia!

📌 Nosa presents a poster at the Fall Research Expo.

🌟 Hunter Courtney completes his time in the lab and heads to the MSTP program at UCLA and Caltech.

👶 Kingsley becomes a new dad — our first lab baby!

🎤 The team attends and presents at the CHOP I2DRI Scientific Symposium.

🥂 Katie passes her preliminary exam.

🌍 We welcome Brazilian student Aisha Zhogbi as our second Researcher of the Future.

🎊 After a successful rotation, Katie Premo officially joins the team.

🍁 Penn FERBS member Nosamudiana Omoigui joins the lab.

💍 We celebrate our first lab wedding — congratulations to Kingsley & Shavonda!

🙌 Monica Manglani, a Rheumatology fellow at CHOP, joins the lab.

👩‍🔬 Molly moves on to become a medical lab scientist in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at CHOP.

🌟 Ben Philipson, a CHOP Hematology/Oncology fellow, joins the Vella Lab.

🏫 We welcome Atoishy Dayve, our first undergraduate volunteer from Drexel University.

📝 Kingsley submits a paper to The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

🌎 The lab participates in the inaugural CHOP Researchers of the Future program, welcoming Carol Ferraz from Brazil.

🩺 MSTP (IGG) student Sam Barnett Dubensky joins the Vella Lab, co-mentored by Derek Oldridge.

🍂 IGG students Oishi Bardhan and Katie Premo start their rotations in the lab.

💻 Tianyu Lu joins as the lab’s first bioinformatician.

🚀 Our very first employee, Shane Kammerman, moves to Massachusetts to join Candel Therapeutics.

🧪 Yi Qi joins the Vella Lab from Penn Bioengineering.

🍾 Nina de Luna and Leena Babiker both pass their preliminary exams.

💫 Josef Novacek departs the lab to pursue studies in patent law.

🇩🇪 We welcome Emilia Schlaak from Germany, the lab’s first international volunteer student.

🌱 IGG student Nicolai Apenes rotates in the lab.

🧬 Research Technician and single-cell expert Molly Gallagher joins the lab.

🔍 Austin Kriews becomes the first BBCB graduate student to rotate in the lab.

🎉 Hunter Courtney becomes the first Penn undergraduate to volunteer in the lab.

✨ For the first time, two IGG students rotate in the lab at once: Nina de Luna and Leena Babiker.

📦 The lab relocates from UPenn’s BRB II/III to the new 10th floor of CHOP CTRB.

😎 We welcome our first postdoctoral fellow, Kingsley Kumashie.

🌟 Josef Novacek joins the lab as our third employee.

🙌 We welcome our second team member and lab manager, Jonny Tedesco.

🔬 Julia Eberhard becomes the first IGG graduate student to rotate in the lab.

1️⃣ The Vella Lab officially begins virtually (COVID 😅), and we welcome our very first team member, Shane Kammerman.