Kiskinis Lab

Dina Simkin, PhD Postdoctoral Fellow

Phone: 312-503-2499 | E-mail: dina.simkin[at]northwestern.edu

Dina was born in Moscow, Russia and moved to the US when she was 8. She received her Bachelor's of Science from Beloit College and her PhD in Neuroscience from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, and a second PhD from Université of Nice, France in Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. Dina trained as a postdoc with Dr. John Disterhoft at Northwestern University studying the electrophysiological properties associated with learning and aging. Her long-term research goals are to identify and understand how normal neuronal function can be dysregulated by defective ion channels associated with human disease (channelopathies) such as certain types of epilepsy. Dina is working on a collaborative project using stem cell culturing techniques in the Kiskinis laboratory and patch-clamp electrophysiology with Dr. Alfred George of the Department of Pharmacology at Northwestern University to understand the electrophysiological and molecular mechanisms behind human neurological diseases. She has been the recipient of several doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships and awards including L'association Française contre les Myopathies predoctoral fellowship (2009), Chateaubriand predoctoral Fellowship (2010), NIH Training T32 postdoctoral fellowship (2014), and Chicago Biomedical Consortium postdoctoral Research Grant (2014). In her free time Dina enjoys oil painting, skiing and fixing things.