| Name | Thesis Advisor | Research Interest |
|---|
| Francesa Cendali | Rotating | My current research interests are molecular mechanisms in athletic training development and developing new methods |
| Stephanie Eramo | Rotating | My current research interests include enzymology, influences of post-translational modification on normal physiology and disease, oncogenic signaling, and cancer-causing mutations. |
| Mark Maslanka | Rotating | Currently, I've been working in the Hansen Lab for the past two years studying alterations in the ECM in various diseases, mainly focusing on cancer. |
| Samantha Zangari | Rotating | My main research interests include protein-protein interactions and cryo-EM. |
| Mark Connolly | Mair Churchill, PhD | My primary research interest is the structural characteristics of chromatin that regulate cellular process such as gene transcription, cellular differentiation and replication. |
Megan Cullinan
| John Bankston, PhD
| Structural dynamics of acid-sensing ion channels using biophysical and biochemical approaches
|
| Rachel Culp-Hill | Angelo D’Alessandro, PhD | Conventional chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia eliminates most proliferating bulk tumor cells, but some of the leukemia stem cell population remains. These remaining cells can lead to disease progression and relapse; targeting them would result in better outcomes or even curative therapy for AML patients. Currently, I am working to characterize the aberrant fatty acid metabolism in leukemic stem cells using metabolomics and mass spectrometry, but my research also focuses on characterizing metabolic perturbations in leukemia, how altered pathways contribute to their phenotype, and how they can be targeted for therapeutic use. |
| Sara Espinosa | Rui Zhao, PhD | My research interest is understanding the molecular mechanism of pre-mRNA splicing and gene expression using biochemical, genetic, and structural approaches |
| Harrison Fuchs | Catherine Musselman, PhD | I am interested in the mechanisms of chromatin signaling in the context of the nucleosome. Specifically, I'm currently working to learn about the conformational dynamics of the histone tails in the context of the nucleosome and how post-translational modifications alter these dynamics. Further, I am interested in understanding the implications of the histone tail dynamics on the read-out of chromatin signaling by histone reader domains. |
| Alya Hussain | Beat Vogeli, PhD | My interests include functional receptor expression, cryo- EM, and neuroscience. |
| Aaron Issaian | Kirk Hansen, PhD | Investigating the function of Olduvai protein domains |
| Jeffrey Krall | Beat Vogeli, PhD | I am interested in protein structure and function, specifically, I want to understand how the structure of a protein affects its function. |
| Ian LaCroix | Angelo D’Alessandro, PhD | My research interest is currently driven by computation, while I work from home due to the COVID19 pandemic. I am very interested in research involving athletic performance optimization, metabolism dynamics, hypoxia. The list of my research interests goes on and on, but is centralized by mass spectrometry. Overall, I am interested in the fundamentals and theory of how a mass spectrometer operates, how to make hardware/method improvements, application of mass spectrometry to answer important biological questions. Furthermore, intelligent data acquisition seems like the future for TMT quantification, and I am interested in the opportunity to facilitate its development. |
| Conner Langeberg | Jeffrey Kieft, PhD | RNAs form diverse and complex tertiary structures which relate to their function in cells where many RNA interacting proteins recognizing these folds. My interests relate to these protein-RNA interactions in the context of highly structured
non-coding RNAs. |
| Eli Martz | Aaron Johnson, PhD | I am primarily interested in studying chromatin structure. |
Maxwell McCabe
| Kirk Hansen, PhD | I am interested in using proteomics to characterize the composition and architecture of the extracellular matrix (ECM) across different organs with a focus on would healing. I am currently working to compose an organ-specific ECM Atlas, characterize the mechanisms of scarless wound-healing in Acomys cahirinus, and determine pro-regenerative components of decellularized ECM scaffolds. In the future, I hope to use this information to improve the rational design of ECM scaffolds for use in regenerative medicine. |
| Kilsia Mercedes | Catherine Musselman, PhD | My research interests include protein structure and dynamics, specifically those involved in inflammatory processes. |
| Parker Nichols | Beat Vogeli, PhD, Co-M Jeffrey Kieft, PhD | I am interested in understanding how RNA molecules fold and function at a structural level |
| Ruben Rosas Ospina | Mair Churchill, PhD | Molecular recognition of DNA by chromatin assembly factor 1 |
| Lauren Schmitt | Kirk Hansen, PhD | Lauren's work in the Hansen Lab focuses on characterizing the structure of blood clots through the identification of FXIIIa cross-links. Our method utilizing cross-linking mass spectrometry (CL-MS), will allow for the rapid identification of these
cross-links and improve our understanding of the structure of a blood clot. |
| Cassandra Smith | David Jones, PhD | Structural analysis of the regulation of mitochondrial trafficking in metastasis |
| Abby Trouth | Srinivas Ramachandran, PhD | My research interests are in epigenetics and chromatin regulation, along with RNA biology and structure. |
| Anna VanKeuren | Ming-Feng Tsai, PhD | I have John Bankston and his lab to thank for my interest in the field of ion channels and their structure. |
