Sonia Lombroso, PhD

• Education

• PhD Pharmacology, University of Pennsylvania (2025)
• BA in Biology and French, Wesleyan University (2016)

• Research Interests

• I’m driven by the idea of using cell therapies to treat brain disease. A growing body of literature suggests that microglia, the resident immune cell of the CNS, may be a good candidate for these types of therapies. In order to fully harness the potential of microglia in combating disease, we must first understand what regulates their homeostatic state and how this goes awry in neurological diseases. Throughout my PhD, I worked to address these questions, in part by generating new methods for microglia replacement. In the Kampmann lab, I am looking forward to using CRISPR technologies to continue to elucidate key regulators that control microglial identity.

• Selected Honors & Awards

• Trainee Keynote Prize at Gliadelphia Symposium, University of Pennsylvania (2024)
• First Place Trainee talk, SPATT Research Retreat Day, University of Pennsylvania (2024)
• Blavatnik Family Fellowship in Biomedical Research (2022)
• Graduate Research Fellowship Program, National Science Foundation (2020)
• T32 Pharmacology Training Grant Recipient, University of Pennsylvania (2020)

Selected Publications

For complete list of publications: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Sonia+lombroso&sort=date

• Chadarevian JP*, Lombroso SI*, Peet GP, Hasselmann J, Tu C, Marzan DE, Capoochi J, Purnell FS, Nemec, KN, Lahian A, Escobar A, England W, Chaluvadi S, O’Brien CA, Yaquoob F, Aisenber W, Porras-Paniagua M, Bennett ML, Davtyan H, Spitale RC, Blurton-Jones M, Bennett FC. Engineering an inhibitor resistant human CSF1R variant for microglia replacement. Journal of Experimental Medicine (2022): 220 (3): e20220857.
• Xu SJ*, Lombroso SI*, Fischer DK, Carpenter MD, Marchione DM, Hamilton PJ, Lim CJ, Neve RL, Garcia BA, Wimmer ME, Pierce RC, Heller EA. Chromatin-mediated alternative splicing regulates cocaine-reward behavior. Neuron (2021): 109(18):2943-2966.e8.
• Aisenberg, WH, O’Brien CA, Sangster M, Yaqoob F, Zhang Y, Temsamrit B, Thom S, GosseL, Chaluvadi S, Elfayomi B, Lee G, Polam V, Levitt EM, Liu G, Lombroso SI, Nemec KM, Clowry G, Nieves C, Rawat P, Church E, Martinez D, Shoffler C, Kancheva D, Petucci C, TaylorD, Kofler J, Erskine D, Movahedi K, Bennett ML, Bennett FC. Direct microglia replacement reveals pathologic and therapeutic contributions of brain macrophages to a monogenic neurological disease Immunity, Volume 58, Issue 5, 1254 - 1268.e9.
• Carpenter MD, Hu Q, Bond AM, Lombroso SI, Czarnecki KS, Lim CS, Song H, Wimmer ME, Pierce CR, Heller EA. Nr4a1 suppresses cocaine-induced behavior via epigenetic regulation of homeostatic target genes. Nature Communication (2020): 11(1):504.
• Mews P, Egervari G, Nativio R, Sidoli S, Donahue G, Lombroso SI, Alexander DC, Riesche SL, Heller EA, Garcia BA, Nestler EJ, Berger SL. Alcohol metabolism contributes to brain histone acetylation. Nature (2019): 574(7780):717-721.
• Sase, AS, Lombroso SI, Santhumayor BA, Wood R, Heller EA. Sex-specific regulation of fear memory by targeted epigenetic editing of Cdk5Biol Psychiatry (2018): 15;85(8):623-634.
• Hamilton PJ, Burek DD, Lombroso SI, Neve RL, Nestler, EJ, Heller EA. Cell-type specific epigenetic editing at the Fosb gene controls susceptibility to social defeat stress. Neuropsychopharmacology (2017): 10.1038/npp.2017.88.
• Heller EA, Hamilton PJ, Burek DD, Lombroso SI, Peña CJ, Neve RL, Nestler EJ. Targeted epigenetic remodeling of the Cdk5 gene in Nucleus Accumbens regulates cocaine and stress-evoked behavior. Journal of Neuroscience (2016): 36(17): 4690-7.

Other Interests

Ceramics, cycling, trying new foods, walking my dog (Rigatoni) – ideally doing any of these things with friends and family