Szostak Lab People
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Katarzyna Adamala Graduate Student
Education MSc organic synthesis, University of Warsaw
Interests Turtles
I am working on a prebiotic synthesis of lipid and nucleotide derivatives. I am interested in the origin of the membrane transport system, and in the prebiotic development of homeostasis. |
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J. Craig Blain Graduate Student
Education BSc, Queen's University
Interests Nucleic acids
Synthesis of non-natural nucleic acids and Darwinian evolution in artificial chemical systems. |
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Itay Budin Graduate Student
Education BS, Biological Engineering, Cornell University
Interests Traveling, films, conversation, culinary adventures
Very broadly, I am interested in how the physical behavior of self-assembling components has shaped cellular evolution.
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Aaron Engelhart Research Fellow
Education PhD, Georgia Institute of Technology
Interests Bicycling, food, the interaction between chemistry and society
I am interested in self-assembly, particularly in aqueous solution. Currently, I am studying
the polymerization of nucleic acids within vesicles.
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Christian Hentrich Research Fellow
Education PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) EMBL and University of Heidelberg, Germany, 2009
Interests Science & Society, Philosophy and History of Science
Protocells, Self-Organization, Microscopy.
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Ben Heuberger Research Fellow
Education BS & BA, Calvin College; PhD, UC Riverside
Interests Sailing, Summer, Alpine activities
My research focuses on the development of protocell actualization through enhancement of nonenzymatic nucleic acid information-transfer efficacy. |
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Satoru Horiya Visiting Fellow
Education B.A. & M.Ed., Tokyo Gakugei University; Ph.D., The Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo
Interests Engineering and biochemistry of peptide, RNA and their complex.
I'm a postdoc in Isaac Krauss lab at Brandeis University. Â I work on a collaboration project between here and Brandeis, which is the selection of HIV-related peptide using mRNA display. |
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Jeanne Jackson Administrative Assistant
Interests Watercolors, painting, music and renovating my condo.
I have worked as an administrative assistant in the medical and scientific community in Boston for over 20 years. After 14 years at Children's Hospital, I came to the Massachusetts General Hospital to work for Dr. Jack Szostak. I also work for Dr. Jeannie T. Lee, a member of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. |
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Aaron Larsen Research Fellow
Education
Interests
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Yollete Guillén Schlippe Research Fellow
Education B.S., CSUF; Ph.D., Brandeis University
Interests Dancing, yoga, skiing, traveling, swimming, cooking, and my cats
I am interested in the evolution of protein and nucleic acid structure and function: what chemical properties determine catalysis and reactivity? How did these evolve and how can they be engineered to perform new functions or used as tools to study biological processes? I am reassigning codons to expand the genetic code to increase monomer diversity for the ribosomal synthesis of highly modified peptides. I want to evolve these small peptides as binders to potential drug targets and as crude catalysts for the synthesis of molecules essential for the origin of life. |
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Jia Sheng Research Fellow
Education
Interests
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Pamela Svec Laboratory Manager
Education B.A. in Chemistry, Russell Sage College
I was the lab manager in David Baltimore's lab for seven years before joining the Szostak lab in 1998 when David's lab moved to CalTech. Before I worked for David, I was in Nigel Godson's lab, first as a technician at Yale Medical School and later as lab manager at NYU Medical School. Nigel told me it was my job to make sure everyone had what they needed to do their work. I've always tried to follow that mandate since then. |
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Isabel Vogt Undergraduate Education
Education A.B., Chemical and Physical Biology (expected), Harvard University
Interests Reading, yoga, painting, and abstract math.
Nucleic acid modifications and nonenzymatic polymerization, ribozyme selection.
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Shenglong Zhang Research Fellow
Education Ph.D., Columbia U.
Interests Chemical and biological studies of non-enzymatic primer extension for synthetic life
My research interest is in the design and synthesis of self-replicating nucleotides for enzyme-free primer extension reaction with the aim of constructing a self-replicating model protocell capable of spontaneous Darwinian evolution. |
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