Principal Investigator
Roger Larken Chang
Assistant Professor of Systems & Computational Biology
Roger started his lab as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Systems & Computational Biology and Department of Biochemistry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2022. He completed his Ph.D. with Bernhard Palsson and Phil Bourne at the University of California San Diego, where he pioneered the integration of protein 3D structure analysis with omic-scale systems modeling to study the effects of diverse physicochemical stresses on bacterial and human systems.
He completed his postdoctoral training in Pam Silver's lab at Harvard Medical School, where he started by integrated proteomic mass spectrometry, structural bioinformatics, and machine learning to study proteome-wide oxidative damage under ionizing radiation in bacteria. His recent work has focused on developing intrinsically disordered proteins inspired by extremotolerant organisms as broadly stabilizing agents in human cells.
In his new lab, Roger will study multi-scale mechanisms of cellular damage by abiotic stresses, especially oxidative stress due to its role in diverse disease and cellular phenotypes (e.g. irradiation, desiccation, cancer, aging, neurodegeneration). He also seeks to leverage understanding susceptibility and resistance to such stress towards engineering new biotechnologies with therapeutic and industrial applications.
Postdoctoral Fellows
Alex Mihnev
Ph.D. Molecular, Cell & Systems Biology, University of Glasgow
Alex is passionate about drug discovery, personalized medicine, and the development of new computational approaches. He is integrating structure-based predictions of oxidation events as constraints for metabolic network modelling. Some of the applications of this research are found in tailoring cancer treatments to patients, as well as identifying new drug targets.
Graduate Students
Gracelyn Richmond
B.S. Microbiology, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Grace is working to analyze the metabolic networks of Lactobacillus rhanmosus and E. coli Nissle to inform designs of probiotics for cancer patients that could reduce side effects of therapies. Her research interests involve reproductive health concerns such as cervical cancer, breast cancer, and STDs. She is passionate about scientific communication and translational research.
Juan Sepulveda
B.S. Molecular and Cellular Biology, Cornell University
Juan is studying the properties of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins (IDPs) to shield to prevent protein aggregation during oxidative stress. He is modeling the impact of IDPs on capturing Reactive Oxidative Species (ROS) and interaction with target proteins. He is interested in learning the impact of IDPs on the formation of membraneless organelles and how these help regulate gene expression and the cell’s response to stress.
Renae Irving
B.S. Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Renae is a rotating MSTP student using human metabolic models and multi-omics to investigate the gastrointestinal (GI) cancer space. Their research interests include the healthful and harmful interactions between humans and their microbiome with a focus on GI disease and infection. They are excited for the opportunity to approach these issues from the systems biology perspective.
Sara Mosavarpour
B.S. Biomolecular Science, New York University
Sara is a rotating PhD student characterizing lysine homocysteinylation, a modification that makes proteins susceptible to oxidation. She is looking forward to studying proteomic work and using computational models to predict and characterize the locations of these modifications.
Todd Richmann
B.S. Molecular Biology and Microbiology, University of Central Florida
Todd is a rotating PhD student using constraint-based modeling to understand growth and metabolism of human gut microbe communities. His scientific interests include science policy, translational research, and precision medicine. He is excited to examine the human microbiome using in silico methods.
Alumni
Nora Lowe
Byram Hills High School
Nora is researching tardigrade-specific intriniscally disordered proteins (TDPs). She is a high school senior and is interested in science communication.