LABORATORY MANAGER
Lily Tran
Lab Manager
Lily oversees the general management of the Gaucher Group. She handles HR, purchasing, research and compliance certifications. Lily manages a large grant portfolio that includes the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and other private foundations. Lily also manages our uricase-knockout mice colony and IACUC compliance.
POST DOC
Lais Balico
Lais utilizes her expertise in CRISPR and genome engineering to insert a functional ancestral uricase gene into human cells. She then grows these cells into organoids and characterizes the metabolic properties of the miniature organs to understand the role of uric acid in hyperuricemia and fatty acid synthesis.
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Lanqiao Xiong
Lanqiao employs evolutionary analysis to engineer Elongation Factor-Tu (EF-Tu), a critical translational apparatus that proofreads and delivers aminoacyl-transfer RNA. Her research enables efficient site-specific incorporations of various unnatural amino acids, which have emerged as promising tools in molecular targeting, in vivo imaging, and biomaterials.
Ze Li
Li works on molecular evolution of purine metabolic pathway with multidisciplinary approach involving molecular biology, computational biology, biochemistry, system biology and mathematical biology.
Ballanah Torbet
Ballanah studies molecular evolution, and how mutations in ancient genes may be the precursor to modern diseases and conditions. I am focusing on the human uricase pseudogene, the function of its protein product, and its role in gout.
Hameed Sanusi
Hameed joins as a new addition to the Prof Gaucher‘s lab to acquire skills utilized in Bioinformatics. As a growing field, he would be exposed to techniques that can help understand genome sequence manipulation and how that can help with several therapeutic techniques.
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
Caleb Smith
Caleb is assisting on researching a gout therapeutic in mice with the hopes of applying it to humans. There is currently no cure but treatment focuses on reducing its painful symptoms.
Allison Lipstein
Allison is a student assistant of the Gaucher Group. Our lab has built an experimental phylogeny, and she is quantifying the biological fitness of each operational taxonomic unit (leaves) and bifurcations (nodes).
Calvin Kottke
Calvin is a research assistant in the Gaucher lab. He is working on a therapeutic treatment for gout in mice with the goal being to apply the same treatment to humans.
Former Postdoc, Research Staff and Vistors:
Dr. Betul Kaçar (Emory, Ph.D.), arrived Fall 2009 (recipient of NASA Astrobiology Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2012-2014) (currently Faculty, University of Wisconsin)
Dr. Megan Cole (MIT, Ph.D.), arrived Fall 2009 (recipient NRSA NIH Postdoctoral Kirschstein Fellowship, 2010-2013) (currently Faculty, Emory University)
Dr. Michael Gromiha (AIST, JAPAN), visited during Fall 2009 (currently Faculty, Indian Institute of Technology)
Dr. Raul Perez Jimenez (Visiting Columbia University), visited Summer 2011
Dr. Diego Fernando Mejia Carmona (Visiting from Granada University), visited Summer 2011
Adam Thomas (Visiting Ph.D. from University of Exeter), visited Spring 2016
Ryan Randall Lawler (M.S. and M.B.A.), Lab Manager 2008-2017, currently General Manager of BioSpark at Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Yosuke Hoshino (Macquarie University, Ph.D.), arrived Fall 2016 (recipient of Agouron Postdocotral Fellowship) (currently Investigator, GFZ German Research Center)
Dr. Mariko Matsuura (University of Florida, Ph.D.), arrived Spring 2017 (currently Staff Scientist, Illumina Biosciences)
Dr. Liliam Martinez-Bello (University of Valencia, Ph.D.), arrived Fall 2018 (currently Staff at Emory University Office of Patents and Technology)
Former Graduate Researchers:
Ziming Zhao, Ph.D., arrived Fall 2008 (graduated currently a postdoc at Yale University)
James Kratzer, Ph.D. – Chemistry, arrived Spring 2009 (recipient GT TI:GER graduate student Fellowship), graduated (currently working for pharmaceutical company)
Ercan Cacan, M.S., graduated 2011
Racchit Thapliyal, M.S., graduated 2011
Vanessa Cox, Ph.D. – Chemistry, arrived Spring 2012 (currently Postdoc US Army Medical Research Institute for Chemical Defense)
Joshua Stern, M.S., (recipient NASA graduate student Fellowship, 2010-2013), graduated 2013
Deepak Unni, M.S. bioinformatics, graduated Fall 2014
Krutika Gaonkar, M.S. bioinformatics, graduated Fall 2014
Will Butler, M.S. biology, graduated Fall 2014
Petar Penev, M.S., bioinformatics
Jennifer Farrah, Ph.D., arrived Fall 2015 (GT Presidential Fellow)
Nolan English, Ph.D., arrived Fall 2016 (GT Presidential Fellow)
Former Undergraduate Researchers:
Amreen Fazal, undergraduate, graduated 2010
Christina Graves, undergraduate, graduated 2011 (received Ph.D. from University of Florida, postdoc at Rockefeller University, currently Assistant Professor UNC – Chapel Hill)
Brian Kwan, undergraduate, graduated Spring 2013
Kelsey Gratton, undergradute, Petit Scholar, graduated Spring 2013
Peter Schnaak, undergradute, Petit Scholar, graduated Spring 2015 (M.D. student Vanderbilt)
Divya Natarajan, undergraduate, graduated Spring 2015 (Master’s program Cambridge)
Kelsey Roof, undergraduate, arrived summer 2015
Caelan Radford, undergraduate, arrived summer 2015 (current Ph.D. student University of Washington)
Divya Shah, undergraduate, arrived 2018
Muhammad Numan, undergraduate, arrived 2018
Shyanna Lowers, SLOAN undergraduate fellow, arrived 2018
Theresa Parker, undergraduate, arrived 2019
Steve Herrara, undergraduate, arrived 2019
Mehjabin Khan, undergraduate, arrived 2019
Sara Desta, undergraduate, arrived 2020
Natalie Santana, undergraduate, arrived 2020
Amelia Floryance, Honor’s undergraduate, arrived 2021
Paris White, undergraduate, arrived 2022
Interested in joining the lab ?
We are always on the lookout for talented students. If what we do sounds like what you love, please send an email to Professor Gaucher
Address
Parker H. Petit Science Center, Room 592
Phone number
(404)-413-5432
