Penn Postdocs in the News: Piero Lamelza, Ph.D., awarded Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship
Penn Postdoctoral Fellow Piero Lamelza receives Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship to investigate centromere evolution
PHILADELPHIA, PA — Dr. Piero Lamelza, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded a 2021 Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship to support his research on the evolution and function of centromeres. Dr. Lamelza conducts his postdoctoral research with Professors Michael Lampson and Mia Levine in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences.
Dr. Lamelza earned his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Washington in 2019, where his doctoral research used Caenorhabditis nematodes to investigate how cellular processes diverge between species and contribute to reproductive incompatibilities.
At Penn, Dr. Lamelza combines bioinformatics, cell biology, and interspecies hybridization to study how rapidly evolving satellite DNA influences chromosome structure and function. His fellowship-supported project, “Testing the functional consequences of rapid centromeric DNA and protein evolution,” examines how evolutionary changes in the DNA and proteins associated with centromeres affect these essential regions of chromosomes.
The Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship supports early-career biomedical scientists pursuing advanced postdoctoral research. The program provides fellows with sustained research training as they develop toward independent scientific careers.
Dr. Lamelza has also been named an NIH MOSAIC Scholar, further supporting his transition toward research independence. His work at Penn contributes to a broader understanding of how rapidly evolving genomic sequences influence chromosome organization, inheritance, and genome stability.
We are proud to celebrate Dr. Lamelza and his contributions to advancing research in chromosome biology and evolutionary genetics at Penn.