Lab Photo Fall 2012

Primary Investigator

Eric Gaucher

Associate Professor
School of Biology
School of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering & Bioscience

Curriculum Vitae

Lab Manager

Ryan Randall

Graduated from the University of Georgia in 2008 with a degree in Cellular Biology. She manages the laboratory and performs original research. She is currently evolving monomeric red fluorescent proteins in the laboratory. Her data will be used to construct an experimental phylogeny that will in turn be used to benchmark computational methods of ancestral sequence reconstruction.

Graduate Students

William Butler

Info to follow...

Vanessa Cox

Vanessa is a graduate student in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Her research goals involve engineering components of the ribosomal translation system to promote the efficient incorporation of unnatural amino acids. Her interests center on medical research and drug development.

James Kratzer

James received his BS degree in Biochemistry from Berry College and is a PhD student from Tech's Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry. James is engineering novel proteins for the treatment of gout and high uric acid levels. He is also a member of Georgia Tech's TI:GER graduate training program class of 2011.

Joshua Stern

Josh is a first-year PhD student. He holds an ScB in Geology-Biology from Brown University, and has done research projects on sulfur-bound sedimentary biomarkers, meteoritic and planetary organics, and Martian hydrogeology. Josh is thrilled to begin research on the ribosome's early evolutionary history. His hobbies include horseback falconry and k'nex.

Post-doctoral Fellows/Visiting Scientists

Megan Cole

Megan earned her PhD in biology from MIT in 2008 where she worked in the lab of Rick Young and studied the transcriptional regulatory circuitry of embryonic stem cells. Megan now does evolutionary synthetic biology research studying the cellular translation machinery. Megan is using computational analyses of ancestral sequences to guide the engineering of proteins involved in translation to allow for the efficient incorporation of a wide array of unnatural amino acids into peptides. This work will further our understanding of the process of protein translation and could greatly benefit drug discovery by allowing for an expanded set of amino acids with beneficial properties to be used in therapeutic peptides.

Michael Gromiha

PhD Bharathidasan University, 1994, Department of Physics

Structural bioinformatics, developing protein thermodynamic prediction tools.

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Betül Kacar

Betül completed her graduate studies in Biomolecular Chemistry, now a NASA Astrobiology postdoctoral fellow in the Gaucher Lab. She is interested in understanding the molecular basis of key evolutionary innovations. Particularly in the Gaucher lab, she created an experimental system that allows her to monitor evolution of bacteria containing ancient genes, in action. Besides her research, she has recently co-founded S.A.G.A.N., an online platform to promote grassroots science outreach activities and discussions.

Click here for more information on Betül's work.

Undergraduates

Kelsey Gratton

Info to follow...

Brian Kwan

Brian is a 5th year biology undergraduate who is doing research with the guidance of Ryan Randall. In his current project he attempts to recover ancient functional phenotypes from a nonfunctional phenotype using monomeric Red Fluorescent Protein as a model. His future plan is to attend graduate school for a degree in pharmacology.

Lily Tran

Info to follow...

Shakara Wright

Shakara is a Civil Engineering undergraduate student here at GT. Through GT's Federal Work Study (FWS) program, Shakara works as a Laboratory Assistant I in our lab during her semeters in between co-ops. Shakara provides exceptional assistance to our researchers by keeping the lab organized, clean, and experiment ready.

High School Students

Kayla Arroyo and Penny Kahn

Penny and Kayla are two ambitious seniors at Dunwoody High School who wish to excel in academics and laboratory research.This duo competed in a national science competition, the Siemens Competition, where they performed research in our lab to uncover the biological role of fluorescent proteins within their coral hosts. Kayla and Penny continue to commute to GT during the school year to perform their exciting research with fluorescent proteins.

Lab Alumni