Jarred is the lead public servant of the Whitlock Lab. His interests lie in understanding how the multinucleated cell types that develop and maintain our musculoskeletal system are formed from multipotent, mononucleated precursors. His ultimate focus lies in two parts 1) helping his neighbors fall in love with the beautiful mysteries of their bodies and 2) meeting unmet needs in pediatric skeletal disease.

Whatever the problem Hongyin sizes it up and leaves it in the dust! Hongyin is well on his way to launching his own path, but while with us, he’s the lab’s lipid guru and microscopy champ. Hongyin has his primary focus set on helping us better understand how osteoclasts use a complex trafficking network to set their size and how much of your bones they blast away! He also has some really cool projects looking at how lipid complexity and orientation set cellular behavior.

Dynamic, analytical, destined to leave her mark on the muskuloskeletal landscape - Gwen is launching the next phase of her scientific career in the Whitlock lab. Biochemical dissection, cellular screening, proteomic profiling - Gwen does it all, however, her primary focus lies in unravelling the complexities of pediatric skeletal disease and developing lead targets for the improvement of the wellbeing of our neighbors.

A UVA Stalwart - Jacob’s focus lies on supporting our current development of theraputic agents for skeletal disease with in vivo model development. However, he does so much more: culture modeling, molecular biology, protein expression, viral vector production and characterization. Jacob is quickly becoming an integral part of the team.

Need some bone marrow isolates? Peptide inhibitor Screening? Cell-Cell singlaing decoded? You’ve come to the right place. Griffin focuses on the execution of a translational project the lab has in partnership with Alexion pharmaceuticals aimed at identifying new therapeutic interventions for pediatric skeletal disease.

The 2025-2026 academic cycle will be a banner year for our group. Dr. Kun Wang is taking some time to pause her clinical work at Central South University in Hunan Province to bolster our preclinical candidate development program. Biomarker discover, lead candidate characterization - dialing in our dosages as we aim our sites on putting Fibrous Dysplasia of Bone and Malignant Infantile Osteopetrosis in the past.

This could be you. The Whitlock Lab will take 1 rotation student in early 2026. In addition to your BIMS support, you will receive travel support for one international conference per annum, enjoy a number of curated support policies, and enjoy membership in the MPBP and CB Departments - the voted the best departments at UVA SOM (n = 1).

We are currently reviewing candidates who can extend our in vivo inquiry into cell-cell fusion as a mechanistic target in pediatric skeletal disease. To apply please click here.

Bethany consults for the Whitlock lab in the areas of graphical presentation, art direction, and design program training for all mentees. In addition, she is the principal developer of the Whitlock lab’s monthly cocktail program and our Tiki Tuesday Program.

Darwin is the resident manuscript/grant submission reviewer for the Whitlock Lab. He assesses all drafts prior to submission. Here, he can be seen following his routine development of an inherent feeling of disgust for overly developed prose found in a recent draft.