Mentors

Contact PI/PD: Babatunde “Kay” Oyajobi, MBBS, PhD, MBA

Director, Office of Postdoctoral Affairs

Professor, Cell Systems & Anatomy

Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Email: oyajobi@uthscsa.edu

PI/PD:Nicquet Blake, PhD

Senior Associate Dean, Student Affairs

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

PI/PD:Steve Whitten, PhD

Associate Professor

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Texas State University

Dr. Liqin Du

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry -  Webpage

Areas of Interest

• The role of micro RNAs in regulating neuroblastoma cell differentiation

• Discovery of novel differentiation agents for treating neuroblastoma

• Novel genes regulating neuroblastoma cell differentiation

• Novel genes in lung tumorigenesis

Dr. Hong-Gu Kang

Associate Professor, Department of Biology - Webpage

Areas of Interest

• Biotic stress in plants
• Plant immunity
• Epigenetic factors

Dr. Sean Kerwin

Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Webpage

Areas of Interest

• Medicinal Chemistry
• Organic Synthesis
• Biochemistry

Dr. Alexander Kornienko

Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Webpage

Areas of Interest

• Synthetic Organic Chemistry (total synthesis and methodology)
• Chemical Biology (focus on cancer signaling and death pathways)
• Medicinal Chemistry (rational drug design and library screening)
• Natural Product Chemistry (isolation, structure elucidation and analogue synthesis)

Dr. Karen Lewis

Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Webpage

Areas of Interest

• Protein-nucleic acid interactions
• RNA chaperones
• Protein and RNA structure-function relationships

Dr. Kevin Lewis

Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Webpage

Areas of Interest

Analysis of genes and proteins required for repair of DNA that has been damaged by radiation or chemicals; importance of DNA repair in aging; development of new techniques for purification and analysis of DNA and RNA; study of interactions between nucleic acids and nanomaterials with potential for use in gene delivery into cells. 

Dr. Yuan Lu

Co-PI for the Xiphophorus Genetic Stock Center - Webpage

Areas of Interest

• Mechanisms that various species adapted to cope with or repress disease, or disease causal mutations that are similar to human condition, to better understand disease etiology and develop novel strategies in controlling human disease.
• Specifically, my research program studies genetics and molecular mechanisms that account for tumorigenic negative epistasis of select Xiphophorus interspecies hybrids [i.e., X. hellerii x (X. maculatus x X. hellerii)].

Dr. Ryan Peterson

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Webpage

Areas of Interest

• Inorganic Chemistry
• Copper Bioinorganic Chemistry
• Metal Biochemistry
• Dioxygen Activation
• Cell Biology of Metal ions and Their Role in Pathogenesis
• Reactive Oxygen species Metabolism
• Metalloenzyme Repurposing and Evolution

Dr. Steve Whitten

Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Webpage

Areas of Interest

• Protein thermodynamics
• Biophysics
• Computational Chemistry

Dr. Xiaoyu Xue

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Webpage

Areas of Interest 

• Mechanism of DNA/RNA helicases and nucleases in DNA replication and repair
• DNA replication fork repair
• R-loop processing
• DNA double strand break (DSB) repair and Homologous recombination
• Structural biology