CBI Scholars

Solongo Batjargal – First year student

Renee Carrington
Advisor: Greg VanDuyneBiochemical and biophysical analysis is being carried out to characterize the function of the conserved YG box of the spinal muscular atrophy-determining gene, SMN.
Email: carringt@mail.med.upenn.edu.

Joel Courter
Advisor: Amos Smith HIV-1 entry inhibitors and Ultrafast Photochemical Triggers as probes of peptide dynamics are being designed, synthesized and biologically evaluated.
Email: jcourtersas@sas.upenn.edu.

Ian Farrell
Advisor: Barry Cooperman Time resolved fluorescent measurements are used to study tRNA movement on the bacterial ribosome.
Email: Ifarrell@sas.upenn.edu.

Brian Frederick – First year student

Bryan Gibb
Advisor: Greg VanDuyneChemical probes, biochemistry and structural biology is being used to investigate the mechanism of catalysis by Cre recombinase.
Email: kwharpole@gmail.com.

Kyle Harpole
Advisor: Josh Wand Nuclear Magnetic Resonance methodologies are being used to probe the role of conformational entropy on protein interactions with small molecules.
Email: kwharpole@gmail.com.

Yu-San Houh
Advisor: Kate Ferguson Biochemical and structural techniques are being employed to determine the molecular basis for substrate recognition by the E3 ubiquitin ligase Pellino.
Email: yhuoh@mail.med.upenn.edu.

Andre Isaacs
Advisor: Jeff Winkler Alkaloid Cyclopamine analogue inhibitors of the Hedgehog signaling pathway are being designed, synthesized and evaluated in cells.
Email: isaacsa@sas.upenn.edu.

Michelle Kinder
Advisor: Ellen Puré Biochemistry and cell biological techniques are being employed to study the role of fatty acid metabolism and hematopoiesis.
Email: Mikinder@gmail.com.

Glen Liszczak
Advisor: Ronen MarmorsteinBiochemical, chemical and enzymatic studies are being used to probe the mechanism of N-terminal protein acetylation by the ternary NAT5/ARD1/NATH complex.
Email: liszczak@sas.upenn.edu.

Patrick Lombardi
Advisor: David ChristiansonChemical and structural approaches are being used to understand the molecular basis for the unique substrate specificity of acetylpolyamine amidhydrolase amongst the Arginase-class I/II deactylase related family of enzymes.
Email: plm@sas.upenn.edu.

Kim Malecka
Advisor: Ronen Marmorstein Small molecule screens for inhibitors of human Papillomavirus E6 protein is being carried out and these inhibitors are being evaluated in vitro and in cells.
Email: kmalecka@sas.upenn.edu.

Mark Mason – First year student

Julie Norseen
Advisor: Paul Lieberman
The role of the G-quadruplex RNA binding motif of EBNA1 protein in the mechanism of EBV DNA replication and maintenance during latency is being studied using small molecule probes.  
Email: norseen@mail.med.upenn.edu.

Brittani Ruble
Advisor: Ivan Dmochowski Synthetic nucleic acid chemistry is being applied to develop probes to turn target genes on and off with light.
Email: brittani.ruble@gmail.com.

Garry Seward
Advisor: Ivan Dmochowski Synthetic chemistry and biochemistry is being applied to develop xenon biosensors for cancer diagnostics.
Email: garryseward@gmail.com.

Kate Smith
Advisor: Feng Gai Single-molecule and ensemble fluorescence techniques are being developed and applied to investigate the dynamics and mechanism of protein folding and interaction.
Email: kabsmith@mail.med.upenn.edu.

Lee Speight – First year student

Liz Sweeny
Advisor: Jim Shorter – Biophysical and chemical methodologies are being used to probe the protein folding and disaggregration properties of the heat shock protein HSP104.
Email: ane@mail.med.upenn.edu.

Kate Thorn
Advisor: David ChristiansonSynthetic organic chemistry and structural biology is being combined to develop potent and selective Arginase I inhibitors.
Email: kate.thorn@gmail.com.

Jun Wang
Advisor: Bill DeGrado Novel influenza A virus M2 proton channel inhibitors are being designed, synthesized, screened and structurally characterized.
Email: upennchainin@gmail.com.

Rebecca Wissner – First year student

Zhengyi (Neo) Wu – First year student