Members of the Saier Lab

Head of laboratory

Dr.  Saier established the main research lines of the lab and coordinates/guides all lab members and projects. His expertise in a wide range of biological fields allowed the creation/maintenance/curation of  the Transporter Classification Database (TCDB) and the publication of more than 600 peer-reviewed papers.

Scientist/Molecular Biology

Dr. Zhang joined the Saier Lab in 2001. He has vast experience on multiple areas such environment-induced mutations in bacteria, transcriptional/metabolic regulation, protein/protein interactome and bacterial growth laws. As a supervisor, he guides students, visiting scholars and oversees all research activities in the wet lab.

Kevin joined the lab in spring, 2016, as an undergrad majoring in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. Thanks to his expertise in Bioinformatics and Structural Biology, Kevin has contributed to multiple projects. His Master’s thesis is about the refinement of bioinformatic techniques to better classify families/superfamilies and improve structure/function predictions.

Andrew joined the lab in July, 2017, as an undergrad with major in Molecular Biology. For his Master’s project, Andrew is investigating how the expression of a metal ion efflux gene cluster in the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans can be influenced by insertion elements and the three-dimensional structure of the DNA.

Harry joined the lab in March, 2018, as an undergrad majoring in Human Biology. He is expanding his original project for his Master’s degree, which seeks to elucidate the molecular mechanism following IS5-insertion into the fuc regulon in Escherichia coli.

Jianing joined the lab in October, 2019, as an undergrad majoring in Bioinformatics. He has participated in two bioinformatics projects. Currently, he is working on his Master’s project about the comparative genomics of viral genomes from the order Nidovirales with emphasis in family and functional associations.

Aditi joined the lab in April, 2020 as a Microbiology major undergrad. She has contributed to two comparative genomics projects. In her Master’s project, she currently collaborates with another student to study the relationship between the LIC family and the VIC superfamily using sequence-based approaches.

Madison joined the lab in August, 2020, as an undergrad and her major was Human Biology.  For her Master’s project, she currently collaborates with another student to study the relationship between the LIC family and the VIC superfamily using a 3D structure-based approach.

Jonathan joined the wet lab in March, 2022, as an undergrad majoring in Cell and Molecular Biology.  For his Master’s degree he is working on a wet lab approach to investigate the effect of IS26 on bacterial antibiotic resistance.

Toheeb is currently a PhD student in the School of Biological Sciences. He started a  rotation in our lab on September 2022. Toheeb is working on the bioinformatic identification and characterization of novel superfamilies of transport proteins.

Hunter joined the lab in April, 2021, and his major is Biology and Bioinformatics. Hunter applies his programming skills to improve established bioinformatics tools, and he will participate in projects including superfamily characterization/expansion and comparative genomics.

Juan joined the wet lab in October, 2021, as an undergrad majoring in Biochemistry.

Clark joined the dry lab in January, 2022, and his major is in Bioinformatics. Clark will apply his software development skills to several bioinformatics projects in the dry lab, including superfamily characterization/expansion and comparative genomics.

Andre joined the dry lab in September, 2022. His major is in Bioinformatics.  In his project, Andre is  using a computational approach to predict of molecular function of hypothetical transporters within the MFS supperfamily.

Bowen joined the lab in February, 2021. His major is Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Bowen’s project applies bioinformatic methods to study the relationship between ABC uptake systems and ABC2 export systems,  which requires both sequence- and structure-based approaches.

Charlene joined the lab in April, 2021, and an undergrad and her major is Global Health. She is working on a comparative genomics study involving endosymbionts of amoebas and clams.

Vince joined the lab in April, 2021. His major is Molecular and Cell Biology. Vince is contributing to the project where we study the relationship between ABC uptake systems and ABC2 export systems. This includes the characterization and relationships between the different components of ECF uptake systems.

Professor/WLU Canada

Dr. Moreno-Hagelsieb took a sabbatical leave in our lab in 2015 as a bioinformatics specialist. Since then, he continues to collaborate with us in multiple projects involving Comparative Genomcis, Superfamily characterization/expansion, and the creation of novel annotation/curation pipelines for TCDB.

MD/St. Clare’s Denville Hospital

Dr. Reddy is our current database developer for TCDB. Over the years, he has contributed to multiple projects in the dry lab, including the adaptation of the ChEBI ontology to transported substrates in TCDB, characterization and expansion of superfamilies, characterization of transportormes, and comparative genomics.

Professor/LACCD

Dr. Reddy has collaborated with the lab multiple times over the years in projects ranging from famiiy/superfamily characterization and evolution, psychobiotics and their impact in mental health, the relationship between autism and the microbiome, the realtioship between eating meat and epidemics, and more.

Professor/ASU Egypt

Dr. Aboulwafa has visited us several times and has collaborated with our wet lab  on a variety of topics, including  transport of sugars and vitamins, regulation of crp gene expression,  protein-protein interactions, and  more.

Alumnus/Illumina

Pranav joined the lab in 2016 as an undergrad majoring in Bioinformatics. He developed and improved web applications and  stand-alone programs to help our research efforts in the dry lab. As a student, he contributed to several projects and continues to collaborate with the Saier lab.

Alumnus/Boston University

Yichi joined the lab in 2017 as an undergrad majoring in Bioinformatics and Environmental Chemistry. He developed several programs to help our research efforts in the dry lab. As a student, he contributed to several projects and continues to collaborate with the Saier lab.

Alumna

Katie obtained her Master’s degree on April 15, 2022, by defending the thesis: Histone-like Nucleoid Structuring (H-NS) Protein Silences the Beta-Glucoside (bgl) Utilization Operon by Formation of a DNA Loop in Escherichia coli. She also contributed to several bioinformatics projects involving Comparative Genomics and Superfamily expansion.

Alumna

Farah joined the lab in October, 2020 as an undergrad. She double majored in pharmacological chemistry and chemical engineering. She was our wet lab assistant for one year.

Nicole joined the lab in March, 2021.  She completed her BSc in General Biology. Nicole contributed to two comparative genomics projects involving 1)  four Metagenome Assembled Genomes from  the bacterial Candidate Phyla Radiation group; and 2) six sulfate-reducing bacteria.

Alumnus

Blaine joined the lab in the 2020 fall quarter as an undergrad majoring in Molecular & Cellular Biology. He participated in a Comparative Genomics project and studied the mechanism of IS5 insertion into the glpFK operon in Escherichia coli.

Alumnus

Ahmed joined the lab from October 2020 to  August 2021. He majored is General Biology and Global Health. In his wet lab project, Ahmed designed experiments to investigate the role of c-di-GMP in the regulation of the FlhDB operon of Escherichia coli during stationary phase.

Alumnus

On June 23, 2021, Dennis obtained his Master’s degree by defending the thesis: The effects of global and specific DNA-binding proteins on transcriptional regulation of the bgl operon. Some of his results have been published.

Alumnus

On January 28, 2021, Daniel obtained his Master’s degree  by defending the thesis: Discovery and characterization of the Phospholemman/SIMP/Viroporin (PSV) superfamily (published results).

Alumna/UCSF

On January 12, 2021, Nuo obtained her Master’s degree by defending the thesis: Structural and evolutionary relationships within the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) superfamily. Her experience allowed her to contribute to the curation of information in TCDB.

Alumnus

On March 19, 2020, Steven obtained his Master’s degree by defending the thesis: Comparative Metagenomic Analyses of Transporters Within the Archaeal Superphylum, Asgard.  (Published results). In addition, his experience allowed him to contribute to the curation of information in TCDB.

Scientist/Pakistan

Dr Khan joined our lab in 2018 as a visiting scholar. As part of her PhD, she worked for a year on the use of the CRISPR/Cas9 system for the generation of disease-resistant plants. She developed most of the protocols of the CRISPR/Cas9 system in our lab.

Alumnus

On July 26, 2018, Pauldeen obtained his Master’s degree by defending the thesis: Expansion of the Major Facilitator Superfamiy (MFS) to include novel transporters and the potential relationship between MFS and the LysE Superfamily (Published results).

Scientist/Iran

Dr. Heidari joined the lab in 2017 and spent over a year doing research as part of her PhD. She worked on two projects: the characterization and comparative genomics of transportomes within the genus Bdellovibrio, as well as an experimental study of a riboflavin transporter in Bdellovibrio exovorous JSS.