TEAM
Andrey Tvardovskiy, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Andrey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and a Core Member of the Epigenetics Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. His research program bridges the fields of proteomics, chromatin biology, and aging, with a focus on decoding the intricate epigenetic circuits that govern genome function and the mechanisms underlying their dysregulation during aging.
Andrey earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Southern Denmark, where he developed and applied quantitative mass spectrometry techniques to dissect the molecular complexity and functional interplay of histone post-translational modifications. His doctoral work pioneered the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of lifelong changes in combinatorial histone modification patterns and histone sequence variants, providing insights into potential mechanisms driving chromatin reorganization during aging. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Till Bartke Lab at the Helmholtz Center Munich, Andrey focused on investigating how nuclear proteins decode composite chromatin modification landscapes to orchestrate key genomic processes. His work contributed to the first systematic characterization of how complex modification patterns define and regulate functional chromatin states.
Dhanunjay Mukhi, Ph.D., Research Associate
Dhanunjay has joined the lab as a Research Associate in May 2025. His work aims at understanding the role of replication-independent histone variants in regulating the genome of non-dividing cells and exploring their potential contribution to epigenomic changes during mammalian aging.
Prior to this role, Dr. Mukhi completed his first postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Katalin Susztak’s lab at Penn’s Department of Genetics and Medicine, where he investigated the genetic and metabolic basis of kidney disease. He earned his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Hyderabad and has also conducted research at the University of Pittsburgh, focusing on liver and metabolic disease.
He is passionate about translating high-throughput discoveries into mechanistic insights that drive therapeutic innovation.