Luis Batista

Luis received his PhD from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil (under the supervision of Dr. Carlos Menck), working in close collaboration with Dr. Bernd Kaina at the University of Mainz, Germany. After his postdoctoral training with Steve Artandi at Stanford, Luis joined Washington University in St. Louis as an Assistant Professor in 2014.

When not in lab Luis enjoys playing tennis, cooking, watching soccer and spending time with his daughter!

Aniruddha (Ani) Samajdar

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah. I completed my Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, and joined the Batista Lab at Washington University in St. Louis in 2023. My research focuses on RNA processing and decay pathways regulating telomerase RNA and nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). Outside the lab, I enjoy cooking, reading history, and have recently started to enjoy hiking.

Roberta Amato

I’m originally from Italy, where I completed my PhD at the University of Roma Tre. I then moved to the U.S. and joined the Batista lab as a postdoc at Washington University in St. Louis, and I am now part of the Batista lab at HCI. My research focuses on liver biology, specifically how hepatocytes communicate with other cell types like stellate cells during liver injury and fibrosis. I’m particularly interested in how telomere dysfunction and DNA damage in hepatocytes influence these interactions and contribute to disease progression. Outside of the lab, I enjoy rollerblading and exploring new places. I love cooking and trying different cuisines, and I’m always happy to share good food. I love the sea and always enjoy it whenever I get the chance to be near it.

Gregory Vandas

I grew up in Missouri, lived in Arizona for a long time, and moved to Salt Lake City in 2022 to work for HCI. I joined the Batista Lab when they moved to Utah in January 2026. I'm not particularly good at thinking about invisible information-containing molecules, but I do enjoy it, and especially about epigenetic inheritance, genome stability, and, most recently, telomere biology. I have no useful skills or talents, but I do have an interest in how things work and sometimes the patience to try to figure it out. I like many types of things, including plants and rocks and maps and beer and metallurgy and music and power washers. I do not like many other types of things. I don't know what I want to be or do when I grow up, but I have thought about installing mirrors professionally - it's something I can really see myself doing.