Graduate Students

Meet Our First-Year Students

		Josh Brattlie brattlie@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2010 Adviser: K. H. Lee Josh is interested in designing and synthesizing novel natural product analogues as potential anti-cancer drug candidates.

		Ryan Bullis bullis@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2007 Adviser: Jian Liu Ryan is focusing on the expression and characterization of N-deacetylase/N-sulfotransferase family of Heparan sulfate biosynthetic enzymes.

		Kasemsiri "Joyce" Chandarajoti chandara@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2009 Adviser: Jian Liu Joyce's focus is the optimization of chemoenzymatic reaction for heparin synthesis.

		Morgan Chapman mchap3@email.unc.edu Adviser: Scott Singleton Morgan is interested in identifying and characterizing small molecule inhibitors of RecBCD, a key regulator of the bacterial SOS response, to probe bacterial genetic recombination and antibiotic resistance.

		Sarah Claypool sclay2@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2010 Adviser: Rihe Liu Sarah is interested in targeting the PSMA receptor by conjugating an optimized version of PSMA-binding aptamer to a PSMA-binding small molecule.

		Danielle Cook dr1cook@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2008 Adviser: Channing Der Danielle’s research is focused on the molecular mechanisms that regulate Ect2, a RhoGEF oncoprotein, in normal cell cytokinesis and oncogenesis.

		Andrew Fant andrew.fant@unc.edu Year Admitted: 2008 Adviser: Alex Tropsha Andrew is interested in systems chemical biology. He is focusing on integrating traditional QSAR models with systems biology simulations for improving prediction of hepatotoxicity.

		Adam Friedman friedmad@email.unc.edu Adviser: Rihe Liu Adam is currently pursuing the development and translational application of highly-stable EGFR-inhibitory aptamers via a powerful new technology called Tip-SELEX.

		Po-Hung Hsieh phsieh@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2011 Adviser: Po-Hung is interested in research at the interface between chemistry and biology, especially for natural products in drug discovery.

		Chia-Wen Hsu hsuc@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2007 Adviser: Klaus Hahn Chia-Wen is interested in developing novel chemical biology tools to monitor and/or perturb spatiotemporal dynamics of a specific protein in living cells. Her current focus is to study how kinases (ERK, p38, Src) and GTPases (Cdc42, Rac1) coordinate to regulate cell motility using multiplexable biosensors and live cell imaging techniques.

		Hsin-Yi Hung hhung@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2008 Adviser: K. H. Lee Hsin-Yi's focus in on dimethyl diphenyl dicarboxylate (DDB) analogues with chemosensitizing and chemopreventive.

		Kyle Konze konze@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2011 Adviser:

	Man Luo mluo@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2007 Adviser: Alex Tropsha Man is interested in cheminformatics, bioinformatics, data mining and information retrieval. She's currently focusing on computational screening of the GPCR receptorome and ligand-based drug design on developing alternate strategies for targeting drug-resistant pathogenic microorganisms.

	Luong Tien Nguyen ntluong@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2009 Adviser: David Lawrence Luong is interested in developing photoactivatable kinase sensors.

	Colin O'Banion cobanion@email.unc.edu Adviser: David Lawrence Colin is currently working to develop a method to investigate cAMP dependent protein kinase signaling in the mitochondria using both chemical and genetically encoded light activated methods.

	Nathan Oien oien@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2009 Adviser: David Lawrence Nate develops flourescent sensors of cyclic-AMP dependent protein kinase A (PKA). His current focus is on monitoring PKA activity in red blood cells.

	Tim O'Leary troleary@email.unc.edu Adviser: Jian Liu Tim's research focuses on expressing and characterizing sulfotransferases from algae. These sulfotransferases are involved in the synthesis of algal sulfated polysaccharides that display potent biological activity.

	Elizabeth Pempe pempe@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2008 Adviser: Jian Liu Liz is focusing on determining which structural features of the heparin molecule control the drug’s half-life.

	Michael Perfetti perfetti@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2010 Adviser: Stephen Frye Michael is working on developing pharmacological small molecule inhibitors and in vivo fluorescent probes to gain deeper insight into the spatial and temporal function, substrate specificity, and potential mechanism of action of methyl-lysine binding domains.

	Sherket Peterson sbp@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2007 Adviser: Jian Liu

	Joe Rittiner rittiner@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2005 Adviser: Mark Zylka Joe is focusing on G protein-coupled receptors, nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and the mechanisms of pain transduction.

	Justin Roberts justinr1@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2008 Adviser:

	Vijay Sekaran vsekaran@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2005 Adviser: Michael Jarstfer Vijay studies autosomal dominant (AD) dyskeratosis congenita by focusing on the structural changes in the human telomerase RNA (htR) that lead to the development of this genetic disease

	Jake Stuckey jstuckey@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2011 Adviser: Jake is interested in synthetic chemistry and enzyme inhibitor design.

	Wei Sun sunw@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2007 Adviser: Qisheng Zhang Wei is interested in the development of small molecule inhibitors of ArfGAPs.

	Carrow Wells Carroww@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2011 Adviser: Carrow’s research interests include the synthesis and design of small molecules that are pharmacologically active. Once these active molecules are identified then utilizing quantitative proteomics for the unbiased identification of target proteins in relevant proteomes.

	Susan Woody smwoody@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2010 Adviser: Jian Liu Susan is interested in the cost-efficient development of synthetic heparin precursors.

	Brittany Wright wrightbd@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2009 Adviser: Mark Zylka

	Weichen Xu weichenx@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2007 Adviser: David Lawrence Weichen is interested in the development of a Fyn Selective Photo-cleavable Bivalent Peptide Inhibitor.

	Yingqiu Zhao yqzhou@email.unc.edu Year Admitted: 2011 Adviser: Yingqiu's research interests include cheminformatics, structural bioinformatics, and structural biology.