Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program - Graduates Since 2011

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is proud to share this list of Graduate Student who graduated since 2011 (Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program or BMS) and we look forward to adding to this list in the future.

Graduated PhD Students

 

2011

Ming-Jin Chang
“Characterization of specific roles for AF4 and Dot1 in transformation mediated by MLL-AF9 leukemic oncoprotein”
March 29th, Blake, Diane

Aram Krauson
“Mechanisms of Pore Formation in Membranes”
March 31st, Wimley, William

2012

Marcia Henry
“Probing the Structural and Molecular Basis for Binding in a Monoclonal Antibody”
March 20th, Blake, Diane

Rebecca Fisher
“Brevetoxin as a Model Analyte for Aquatic Immunosensor Applications”
June 7th, Blake, Diane

Dorothy Lo
“Characterizing the Regulation of Nucleostemin and Its Interaction with the ARF Tumor Suppressor”
November 1st, Lu, Hua

2013

Jessica Marks
“The rational combinatorial design of cell-penetrating peptides”
August 15th, Wimley, William

2014

Tysheena Charles
“Identification of B and T cell epitopes Using recombinant proteins”
May 30th, Landry, Samuel

Hussain Badani
“Understanding the mechanism of action of Flufirvitide-3, a peptide based inhibitor of influenza virus”
July 17th, Wimley, William

Hong-Nam Nguyen
“Modulation of disulfide-stabilized structure affects the helper T-cell response to HIV gp120”
July 22nd, Landry, Samuel

2015

Erin Henninger
“Understanding Human DNA Polymerase Epsilon Functions: Cancer- Associated Mutator Variants, Proofreading Defects and Post-Translational Modifications”
March 9th, Pursell, Zachary

Yue Sun 
“Methylated phenanthrene as a petrogenic marker: toxicology assessment and engineering antibody reagents for environmental detection”
October 27th, Blake, Diane

2016

Blake Rust
“Ectopic CD4+ T Cell Epitopes in Variant Proteins: Structural Influences on Immunodominance and Phenotype”
January 4th, Landry, Samuel

Alexandra Goksenin*
“Contributions of Proofreading Deficiencies in Human DNA Polymerase epsilon to Genomic Instability”
March 15th, Pursell, Zachary

Courtney Standlee
“Gas6 Alters Mammary Gland Development And Breast Cancer Progression”
July 21st, Machado, Heather

Wenjuan Liao
“CCDC3: A new p63 target gene involved in regulation of liver lipid metabolism”
November 9th, Lu, Hua

2017

Emily Carron
“Macrophages in Breast Cancer Progression”
March 17th, Machado, Heather

Taylor Fuselier
“Spontaneous membrane translocating peptides: Characterization of common motifs and design of novel screens for delivery of bioactive cargoes”
September 20th, Wimley, William

William (Berkeley) Kauffman
“Synthetic molecular evolution of hybrid cell penetrating peptides that efficiently deliver peptide and peptide nucleic acid cargoes to cells”
October 25th, Wimley, William

Charles Starr
“Development of novel antimicrobial peptides with improved hemocompatibility through combinatorial library screening and rational sequence engineering”
October 26th, Wimley, William

2018

Daniel Nguyen*
“Novel Regulation of Tumor Suppressor p73 by Nerve Growth Factor Receptor
April 3rd, Lu, Hua

Karl Hodel
“Investigation of human DNA polymerase epsilon mutants in cancer: Mutagenic capacity, mutation spectrum and influence of mismatch repair correction”
May 31st, Pursell, Zachary

Grace Jairo
“Engineering Recombinant Antibodies for Immunosensors: Incorporating Peptide Tags for Gold Nanoparticle Binding and Incorporating the 12F6 Antibody in a Lateral Flow Device for Detection of Uranium in Groundwater”
November 7th, Blake, Diane

2019

Sonia Rao
“BH3 Mimetics Induce Chemotherapyinduced Cancer Cells and Improve Response”
August 12th, Jackson, James

2020

Shantanu Guha
“The Ebola virus delta-peptides are enterotoxic viroporins in vivo and potentially druggable targets”
March 25th, Wimley, William

Daniel Moss
“Antigen Stability Influences Processing Efficiency and Immunogenicity of Pseudomonas Exotoxin Domain III and Ovalbumin”
March 26th, Landry, Samuel

2021

J.O. (Joie) Olayiwola
“Adult mice lacking Brca1 are normal and viable but have hypersensitivity to DNA interstrand crosslinks”
March 29th, Jackson, James

Yujue Chen
“Investigate the Mechanisms in the regulation of centromere-kinetochore network”
April 1st, Liu, Hong

Jenisha Ghimire
“Use of rational engineering and combinatorial library screening to enhance synthetically evolved antimicrobial peptides” 
April 9th, Wimley, William

Qian Zhang
“Investigate the mechanism of how sister-chromatid separation is regulated in mitosis”
April 13th, Liu, Hong

Vivian Park
“Mouse models of DNA polymerase epsilon hypermutant tumor development”
April 14th, Pursell, Zachary

Deeptiman Chatterjee
“Characterization of Epithelial Dysplasia at Single-cell Resolution in The Drosophila Ovarian Model” 
December 2nd, Deng, Wu-Min

Nini Zhou
“The Conserved Effects of ESCRT on Mammalian Retrotransposition”
December 20th, Han, Jeffrey

2022

Eric Wu
“Macromolecular cargo delivery into the cytosol of live cells using pH-triggered pore-forming peptides”
May 13th, Wimley, William

Meijuan “Selina” Sun
“The Genome Remembers: Using Mutation Studies to Understand DNA Polymerase and APOBEC Functions” 
June 2nd, Pursell, Zachary

Lauren Swientoniewski
“The Effects of Aluminosilicate Microstructures on Crude Oil Biodegradation Using Model Marine Organisms”
June 30th, Machado, Heather

Lu Yang
“Regulation of Centromere Function”
July 6th, Liu, Hong

Caitlin Burke
“Tumor-derived C/EBPb is essential for mammary tumorigenesis”
October 18th, Machado, Heather

Leisheng Sun
“Triggered cargo release from liposomes using membrane-selective nano pore-forming peptides”
November 22nd, Wimley William

2023

Michelle Rojo
“C/EBPβ deletion in macrophages alters signaling to mammary epithelial cells during development and tumor progression”
January 11th, Machado, Heather

Ashkan Shahbandi*
“Breast cancer cells survive chemotherapy by activating robust, parallel programs of immune checkpoint expression that can be targeted with immunotherapy”
March 8th, Jackson, James

Ryan Ferrie*
“Rapid delivery of bioactive, membrane-impermeable peptides into cancer cells by synthetically evolved membrane active peptides”
April 3rd, Wimley, William

Xuanming (Troy) Zhang
“L1 Retrotransposon Insertion Profiling in Mice”
April 25th, Han, Jeffrey

2024

Rajitha Udakara Sampath Hemba-Waduge
“Interplay between Wnt Signaling and the Bithorax Complex in Drosophila
April 10th, Ji, Jun-yuan

Alex Mrozek
“Evaluating the Unfolded Protein Response Regulator GRP78 as a Therapeutic Target in Disease”
September 5th, Lu, Hua/Park, Hee-Won

Femke Aan
“Elucidating a Novel Mechanism of R-Ras Activation in Response to Fluid Shear Stress to Regulate Endothelial Permeability in Health and Disease”
December 4th, Matter, Michelle

2025

Juliet Strauss*
“Going Greek: Which TLS polymerase is the most “high value”?”
April 22nd, Pursell, Zachary


*MD-PhD Student
Italics - Mentor