Kwiatkowski Lab

The Kwiatkowski Lab is located in the Department of Cell Biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The primary focus of work in the Kwiatkowski Lab is to gain a mechanistic understanding of cardiomyocyte adhesion and cytoskeletal organization. Our approach is to use to a combination of protein biochemistry, cell biology and microscopy to define mechanisms of cell-cell adhesion, and downstream regulation of actin and intermediate filament organization, by the cadherin-catenin adhesion complex. Our rationale is that understanding the molecular mechanisms of adherens junction adhesion in cardiomyocytes will provide fundamental insight into cardiomyocyte cell-cell adhesion and adherens junction biology.

Sahana receives an AHA Predoctoral Fellowship!

Sahana was awarded an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship – well done! The fellowship runs from June 2023 until May 2025 and will support her work in exploring how the […]

Welcome incoming IBGP students!

The Kwiatkowski lab would like to welcome the new IBGP students to Pitt! We hope yinz are settling in nicely and are ready for orientation to start on Monday, August […]

Congratulations Dr. Heier!

Jon successfully defended his thesis “Biochemical characterization of alpha-T-catenin ligand binding” on Monday, July 12th. Well done!! Jon is headed to the University of Wisconsin this fall to start a postdoc […]

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Adam Kwiatkowski

Principal Investigator

Adam did his Ph.D. work with Frank Gertler at MIT and his postdoc research with James Nelson at Stanford. He moved to Pittsburgh to start his own lab in April 2012.

Adam’s NIH BioSketch

Adam’s Google Scholar Profile

Adam’s ResearchGate Profile

Sahana Balasubramanian

Graduate Student

Sahana is a Ph.D. student in the Cell Biology and Molecular Physiology Program who joined the lab in April 2020. She received her Master’s Degree from the University of Texas at Dallas. She enjoys exploring nature when she’s not exploring the lab. She likes photographing birds and butterflies. She’s also a trained Indian Classical Bharatanatyam dancer. Sahana loves drinking coffee and is on a quest to finding the best cup of coffee in Pittsburgh.

Lab Alumni (position)

Alexandra (Lexi) Campbell – Masters Student/Lab Tech

Ian Dale – Lab Tech

Kerry Hancuch – Lab Tech

Jonathon Heier – Graduate Student

Yang Li – Research Instructor

Chelsea Merkel – Graduate Student

Roisin O’Dowd – Undergrad

Katherine Pfister – Postdoc

Emma Porter – Undergrad

Qanber Raza – Postdoc

Aisha Vallopra – Undergrad

Emily Wickline – Postdoc

The Kwiatkowski Lab