Postdoctoral Fellows and Instructors

Marwa Aljardali, M.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Saida, Lebanon
• Undergrad: Lebanese American University (Biology)
• Graduate school: Lebanese American University (Medicine)
• Mentor: Dr. W. Lee Kraus
• Project: TBD
• Paper: Aljardali MW, Kremer KM, Parker JE, Fleming E, Chen H, Lea JS, Kraus WL, Camacho CV. (2024) Nucleolar Localization of the RNA Helicase DDX21 Predicts Survival Outcomes in Gynecologic Cancers. Cancer Res Commun. 4(6):1495-1504. 

Sarah Bahraoui, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Annecy, France
• Undergrad: Grenoble Alpes University (Life Sciences)
• Graduate school: M.S. at University of Montpellier (Cancer Biology), Ph.D. at University of Montpellier (Stem Cell Biology and Health)
• Mentor: Dr. Laura Banaszynski
• Project: TBD

Mohd Younus Bhat, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Pampore, Jammu and Kashmir, India
• Undergrad: University of Kashmir (Biochemistry)
• Graduate school: University of Kashmir (Biophysics)
• Mentor: Dr. Xin Liu
• Project: Structural and Functional Dissection of Polycomb Repressive Complexes PRC2.1 and PRC2.2
• Paper: Bhat M.Y., Singh L.R., Dar T.A. (2017) Trimethylamine N-oxide abolishes the chaperone activity of α-casein: an intrinsically disordered protein. Scientific Reports. 7, 6572.

Qiqi Cao, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
• Undergrad: Harbin Medical University (Health Supervision)
• Graduate school: Nanjing Medical University (Reproductive Medicine)
• Mentors: Drs. Haiqi Chen and Ed Grow
• Project: Spatial transcriptome atlas for ovarian follicles
• Paper: Rajachandran S, Zhang X, Cao Q, Caldeira-Brant AL, Zhang X, Song Y, Evans M, Bukulmez O, Grow EJ, Nagano M, Orwig KE, Chen H. (2023) Dissecting the spermatogonial stem cell niche using spatial transcriptomics. Cell Rep. 42(7):112737.

Morgan Dasovich, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Chicago, IL
• Undergrad: The College of Wooster (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
• Graduate school: Johns Hopkins University (Chemistry-Biology Interface)
• Mentor: Dr. W. Lee Kraus
• Project: Understanding how PARPs and ADP-ribosylation regulate signaling pathways and cellular outcomes.
• Paper: Dasovich M, Leung AKL. PARPs and ADP-ribosylation: Deciphering the complexity with molecular tools. Mol Cell. 2023 May 18;83(10):1552-1572.

Ashish Joshi, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Delhi, India
• Undergrad: University School of Biotechnology (USBT), Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi, India (Biotechnology)
• Graduate school: Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India (Biological Sciences)
• Mentor: Dr. Ben Sabari
• Project: Understanding sequence-function relationship of functional nuclear condensates
• Paper: Joshi, A., Walimbe, A., Avni, A., Rai, S. K., Arora, L., Sarkar, S., & Mukhopadhyay, S. (2023). Single-molecule FRET unmasks structural subpopulations and crucial molecular events during FUS low-complexity domain phase separation. Nat Comm. 14(1):7331.

Xiang Li, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Ganzhou, Jiangxi, China
• Undergrad: Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong China. (Biotechnology)
• Graduate school: Ph.D.: SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY (Biochemistry)
  MS: University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA. (Bioengineering)
• Mentor: Dr. Ben Sabari
• Project: Role of condensate formation in cancer progression regulation
• Paper: Porter BA, Li X, Arya N, Zhang F, Kung SHY, Fazli L, Oo HZ, Li Y, Marincin K, Kukkonen K, Urhonen H, Ortiz MA, Kemraj AP, Corey E, Dong X, Kuznetsov VA, Nykter M, Gleave ME, Bratslavsky G, Urbanucci A, Frueh D, Bah A, Kotula L. ABI1 regulates transcriptional activity of Androgen Receptor by novel DNA and AR binding mechanism. bioRxiv 2023.05.26.542350.

Chenqian Liu, M.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Mentor: Dr. W. Lee Kraus
• Project: ADP-ribosylation sites on a genome-wide scale in cancer cells
• Paper: Liu CQ, Sun JX, Xu JZ, Qian XY, Hong SY, Xu MY, An Y, Xia QD, Hu J, Wang SG. Metformin Use on Incidence and Oncologic Outcomes of Bladder Cancer Patients With T2DM: An Updated Meta-Analysis. Front Pharmacol. 2022 Apr 7;13:865988.

Prashant Pradhan, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Delhi, India
• Undergrad: University of Delhi (Biomedical Science)
• Graduate school: Indian Institute of Technology – Delhi (Biological Sciences)
• Mentor: Dr. Ben Sabari
• Project: Role of biomolecular condensates in development and disease
• Paper: Lyons H, Veettil RT, Pradhan P, Fornero C, De La Cruz N, Ito K, Eppert M, Roeder RG, Sabari BR. (2023) Functional partitioning of transcriptional regulators by patterned charge blocks. Cell. 186(2):327-345.e28.

Chikara Takeuchi, M.D., Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Yokohama, Japan
• Undergrad: Keio University, Japan (Medicine)
• Graduate school: Keio University, Japan (Medical Science)
• Mentor: Dr. Gary Hon
• Project: Temporal enhancer architectures during development
• Fellowship: Takeda Science Foundation
• Paper: Takeuchi C., Yokoshi M., Kondo S., Shibuya A., Saito K., Fukaya T., Siomi H., Iwasaki Y.W. (2022) Mod(mdg4) variants repress telomeric retrotransposon HeT-A by blocking subtelomeric enhancers. Nucleic Acids Res. 50(20):11580-11599.

Xinrui Tan, M.D., Ph.D.

• Instructor
• Hometown: Changsha, China
• Undergrad: Xi'an Jiaotong University, China (Clinical Medicine)
• Graduate school: Xi'an Jiaotong University, China (Pediatric Endocrinology)
• Mentor: Dr. W. Lee Kraus
• Project: Ribosome MARylation in adipocyte biology

Poulami Tapadar, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Undergrad: Presidency University (M.Sc. in Biotechnology)
• Graduate school: Presidency University (Ph.D. in Life Sciences)
• Mentor: Dr. W. Lee Kraus
• Project: How gene transcription levels are altered by PARPs in different cancer types
• Paper: Tapadar P, Pal A, Ghosal N, Kumar B, Paul T, Biswas N, Pal R. (2023) CDH1 overexpression sensitizes TRAIL resistant breast cancer cells towards rhTRAIL induced apoptosis. Molecular Biology Reports 50(9):7283-7294.

Shubham Vashishtha, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Uttarakhand, India
• Undergrad: Jaypee University of Information Technology, Solan, India (Biotechnology)
• Graduate school: Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India (Biological Sciences)
• Mentor: Dr. Ben Sabari
• Project: Understanding the nature and role of biomolecular condensates in diseases conditions
• Paper: Singh J*, Vashishtha S*, Kundu B. (2023) Spike Protein Mutation-Induced Changes in the Kinetic and Thermodynamic Behavior of Its Receptor Binding Domains Explain Their Higher Propensity to Attain Open States in SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern. ACS Central Science 9(10):1894-1904.

Qianlan Xu, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Hefei, China
• Undergrad: Anhui Normal University (Life science)
• Graduate school: University of Science and Technology of China (Neurobiology)
• Mentor: Dr. Haiqi Chen
• Project: Molecular mechanisms of gene regulation in development and diseases
• Paper: Xu Q, Rydz C, Nguyen Huu VA, Rocha L, Palomino La Torre C, Lee I, Cho W, Jabari M, Donello J, Lyon DC, Brooke RT, Horvath S, Weinreb RN, Ju WK, Foik A, Skowronska-Krawczyk D. (2022) Stress induced aging in mouse eye. Aging Cell 21(12):e13737.

Weizhi Xu, Ph.D.

• Assistant Instructor
• Hometown: Guangdong, China
• Undergrad: Peking University (Basic Medical Sciences)
• Graduate school: Peking University (Anatomy, Histology and Embryology)
• Mentors: Drs. Laura Banaszynski and Ashley Solmonson
• Project: Intersection of epigenomics and metabolism
• Paper: Xu W, Wan J, Zhan J, Li X, He H, Shi Z, Zhang H. (2017) Global profiling of crotonylation on non-histone proteins. Cell Research 27(7):946-949.

Xin Zhang, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Taizhou, Jiangsu province, China
• Undergrad: Nanjing Medical University (Biotechnology)
• Graduate school: Nanjing Medical University (Reproductive Medicine)
• Mentor: Dr. Haiqi Chen
• Project: Spatial CRISPR Genomics for Spermatogenesis
• Paper: Rajachandran S, Zhang X, Cao Q, Caldeira-Brant AL, Zhang X, Song Y, Evans M, Bukulmez O, Grow EJ, Nagano M, Orwig KE, Chen H. (2023) Dissecting the spermatogonial stem cell niche using spatial transcriptomics. Cell Rep. 42(7):112737.

Xin Zhao, Ph.D.

• Postdoctoral Fellow
• Hometown: Qingdao, China
• Undergrad: Qingdao Agricultural University (Veterinary Medicine)
• Graduate school: Jilin University (M.S. in Parasitology), University of Groningen (Ph.D. in Microbiology)
• Mentor: Dr. Laura Banaszynski
• Project: TBD
• Paper: Zhang J, Zhao X, Liu L, Li HD, Gu L, Castrillon DH, Li GM. (2022) The mismatch recognition protein MutSα promotes nascent strand degradation at stalled replication forks. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 119(40):e2201738119.