Current Graduate Students

Nancy De La Cruz

Altair Dube

Hometown: Newark, Delaware
Undergrad: Florida Institute of Technology (Biological Sciences)
Graduate program: Genetics, Development and Disease
Mentor: Dr. Laura Banaszynski
Project: Mechanisms of p300 activity during cell lineage specification
Paper: Xiao M, Wu CH, Meek G, Kelly B, Castillo DB, Young LEA, Martire S, Dhungel S, McCauley E, Saha P, Dube AL, Gentry MS, Banaszynski LA, Sun RC, Kikani CK. (2023) PASK links cellular energy metabolism with a mitotic self-renewal network to establish differentiation competence. Elife. 12:e81717.

Mikayla Eppert

Hometown: Boone, Iowa
Undergrad: University of Iowa (Spanish and Biochemistry)
Graduate program: Genetics, Development and Disease
Mentor: Dr. Ben Sabari
Project: Achieving gene control through dynamic compartmentalization of transcription machinery
Fellowship: NIH NRSA F31 Fellowship
Paper: Gan P, Eppert M, De La Cruz N, Lyons H, Shah AM, Veettil RT, Chen K, Pradhan P, Bezprozvannaya S, Xu L, Liu N, Olson EN, Sabari BR. (2024) Coactivator condensation drives cardiovascular cell lineage specification. Sci Adv. 10(11):eadk7160.

Taosha Gao

Hometown: Suzhou, China
Undergrad: Tongji University (Software Engineering)
M.S.: Case Western Reserve University (Computing and Information Science)
Ph.D. program: Biomedical Engineering
Mentor: Dr. Gary Hon
Project: Gene regulatory networks
Paper: *Qiu S, *Hu Y, *Huang Y, *Gao T, Wang X, Wang D, Ren B, Shi X, Chen Y, Wang X, Wang D, Han L, Liang Y, Liu D, Liu Q, Deng L, Chen Z, Zhan L, Chen T, Huang Y, Wu Q, Xie T, Qian L, Jin C, Huang J, Deng W, Jiang T, Li X, Jia X, Yuan J, Li A, Yan J, Xu N, Xu L, Luo Q, Poo MM, Sun Y, Li CT, Yao H, Gong H, Sun YG, Xu C. (2024) Whole-brain spatial organization of hippocampal single-neuron projectomes. Science. 383(6682):eadj9198. *equal contribution

Soumya Kamath

Hyung Bum (HB) Kim

Hometown: Queens, New York
Undergrad: Brandeis University (Biochemistry)
Graduate program: Genetics, Development and Disease
Mentor: Dr. W. Lee Kraus
Project: Connecting fluctuations in estrogen with transcriptional response
Paper: Kim HB, Kraus WL. (2025) Intracellular Retention of Estradiol is Mediated by GRAM Domain-Containing Protein ASTER-B in Breast Cancer Cells. Mol Cancer Res. Online ahead of print.

Zachary Markham

Hometown: Leakey, Texas
Undergrad: University of California, Davis (Cell Biology)
Graduate program: Cell and Molecular Biology
Mentor: Dr. Gary Hon
Project: TF Interactions During Cell-state Reprogramming
Paper: Liu L, Oura S, Markham Z, Hamilton JN, Skory RM, Li L, Sakurai M, Wang L, Pinzon-Arteaga CA, Plachta N, Hon GC, Wu J. (2023) Modeling post-implantation stages of human development into early organogenesis with stem-cell-derived peri-gastruloids. Cell. 186(18):3776-3792.e16.

Ryan O'Hara

Hometown: Plano, Texas
Undergrad: University of Texas at Dallas (Molecular Biology)
Graduate program: Genetics, Development and Disease
Mentor: Dr. Laura Banaszynski
Project: Loss of heterochromatin at endogenous retroviruses creates competition for transcription factor binding
Paper: O'Hara R., Tedone E., Ludlow A., Huang E., Arosio B., Mari D., Shay J.W. (2019) Quantitative mitochondrial DNA copy number determination using droplet digital PCR with single-cell resolution. Genome Research 29(11):1878-1888.

Camila Perez Lujan

Hometown: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Undergrad: University of Buenos Aires (Molecular Biology)
Graduate program: Genetics, Development and Disease
Mentor: Dr. Ed Grow
Project: Epigenetics of the female reproductive system
Paper: Barbero G, de Sousa Serro MG, Perez Lujan C, Vitullo AD, González CR, González B. (2023) Transcriptome profiling of histone writers/erasers enzymes across spermatogenesis, mature sperm and pre-cleavage embryo: Implications in paternal epigenome transitions and inheritance mechanisms. Front Cell Dev Biol. 11:1086573.

Purbita Saha

Hometown: Kolkata, India
Undergrad: St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India (Biotechnology – BS and MS)
Graduate program: Genetics, Development and Disease
Mentor: Dr. Laura Banaszynski
Project: Role of Histone Variant H3.3 in Enhancer Acetylation in Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells
Paper: Tafessu A, O'Hara R, Martire S, Dube AL, Saha P, Gant VU, Banaszynski LA. (2023) H3.3 contributes to chromatin accessibility and transcription factor binding at promoter-proximal regulatory elements in embryonic stem cells. Genome Biol. 24(1):25.

Weidan Song

Hometown: Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
Undergrad: Wuhan University in Wuhan, Hubei, China (Biological Sciences)
Graduate program: Genetics, Development and Disease
Mentor: Dr. W. Lee Kraus
Project: Molecular determinants of PARP1 substrate selection and catalytic activity
Fellowship: American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship
Paper: Hayat F, Deason JT, Bryan RL, Terkeltaub R, Song W, Kraus WL, Pluth J, Gassman NR, Migaud ME. (2024) Synthesis, Detection, and Metabolism of Pyridone Ribosides, Products of NAD Overoxidation. Chem Res Toxicol. 37(2):248-258.

Anjana Sundarrajan

Hometown: Chennai, India
Undergrad: Manipal University, India (Pharmaceutical Sciences)
Graduate program: Genetics, Development and Disease
Mentor: Dr. Gary Hon
Project: Functional characterization of non-coding variants in cardiac development
Scholarship: JN Tata Scholarship for Higher Education of Indians
Paper: *Armendariz D.A., *Sundarrajan A., Hon G.C. (2023) Breaking enhancers to gain insight into developmental defects. eLife 12:e88187. *equal contribution