Principal Investigator
Roger Larken Chang
Assistant Professor of Systems & Computational Biology
Roger started his lab in the Department of Systems & Computational Biology and Department of Biochemistry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2022. He completed a B.A. in Molecular & Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, postbacc with Richard Scheuermann at UT Southwestern, and Ph.D. in Bioinformatics & Systems Biology with Bernhard Palsson and Phil Bourne at UC 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. He then developed intrinsically disordered proteins inspired by extremotolerant organisms as broadly stabilizing agents in human cells.
In his new lab, Roger studies multi-scale mechanisms of cellular damage by abiotic stresses, especially oxidative stress due to its role in diverse disease and cellular phenotypes (e.g. cancer, aging, neurodegeneration, irradiation, desiccation). He also seeks to leverage understanding susceptibility and resistance to 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 an 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 modeling pollutant-exposed lungs using multi-omics data and metabolic network modeling to examine signaling pathways and oxidation events. She is co-mentored by Lindsay LaFave and looks forward to integrating computational models and lung biology.
Alumni
Nora Lowe
Amherst College
Nora researched tardigrade-specific intriniscally disordered proteins (TDPs) as a high school researcher. She now studies science communication at Amherst College.