Members of the Saier Lab

Professor/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 about 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.

Nicholas joined the lab in fall, 2017, as an undergrad  double majoring in Microbiology & Mathematics. He has participated in projects involving Comparative Genomics, Transcriptional Regulation, and the study of SARS-corona virus. In his Master’s project, Nicholas combines wet/dry lab techniques to design CRISPR gRNAs to target antibiotic resistance proteins.

Katie joined the lab in October, 2018, as an undergrad with major in Human Biology. She has contributed to several projects involving Comparative Genomics and Superfamily expansion. Currently, she is working on her Master’s project, where she studies non-insertional mutations in the bgl operon in Escherichia coli.

Dennis joined the lab in October, 2018, as an undergrad majoring in Biochemistry & Cell Biology. His project studies the effect, under different growth conditions, that the deletion of specific genes has on the transcription of the bgl operon in Escherichia coli.

Peter joined the lab in July, 2019, as an undergrad majoring in General Biology. His Master’s project is to determine the effect DNA binding proteins have on transposition frequency into the bgl operon in Escherichia coli.

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 collaborates with another student to study the relationship between the LIC family and the VIC superfamily using sequence-based and 3D structural-based approaches.

Blaine joined the lab in the 2020 fall quarter as an undergrad majoring in Molecular & Cellular Biology. He has contributed to one Comparative Genomics project in the dry lab. His Master’s project is to elucidate the mechanism of IS5 insertion into the glpFK operon in Escherichia coli.

Madison joined the lab in August, 2020, and her major is Human Biology. She has contributed to two bioinformatics projects. In her currently project, she collaborates with another student to study the relationship between the LIC family and the VIC superfamily using a 3D structure-based approach.

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

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.

Dr. Meng joined the lab in October, 2020.  She is working with two other undergrad students on collecting evidence to determine whether the LIC family, which includes GABA receptors, is a distant member of the VIC superfamily.

Nicole joined the lab in March, 2021.  She completed her BSc in General Biology. Nicole is contributing to three comparative genomics projects involving 1)  four Metagenome Assembled Genomes from  the bacterial Candidate Phyla Radiation group; 2) six sulfate-reducing bacteria; and 3) eight endosymbionts of amoebas and clams.

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/Boston University

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.

Mai joined the lab in September, 2020, as an undergrad. During 10 months, 1) she curated ABC  systems in TCDB; 2) she studied the relationship of the ABC LptBFG family to ABC type 2 systems; and 3) in collaboration with other students, she studied the relationship between the S and T subunits within ECF systems.

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.

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.

Volunteer

Cassidy joined the lab in July 2019 as a  volunteer undergrad. She used bioinformatic techniques to characterize the transportome of the sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfobacterium autotrophicum HRM2.

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).