Postdoctoral Fellow Profiles

Azeem@northwestern.edu

Research Description

Azeem’s research focuses on uncovering the structural and functional details of stress sensing in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Currently, he focuses on inositol requiring enzyme 1 (IRE1) and employs state-of-the-art biophysical and biochemical approaches to investigate IRE1 regulation.

Research Description

mahmood.dalhat@northwestern.edu

PhD - King Abdulaziz University

Research Description

Mahmood studies gene regulation at the posttranscriptional level, focusing on how cancer cells modify ribosomal RNA (rRNA) to support ribosome biogenesis and protein translation. His research aims to uncover novel molecular targets for ribosome-directed cancer therapy.

caleb.embree@northwestern.edu

PhD - The Ohio State University

Research Description

Caleb studies how RNA regulation and processing mechanisms are connected. He is interested in identifying the USER codes and associated RNA binding proteins that underlie eIF4E-mediated splicing in acute myeloid leukemia.

eduardo.guadarrama@northwestern.edu

'25 PhD - Northwestern University (NUIN)

Research Description

mahil.lambert@northwestern.edu

PhD - Goethe University Frankfurt

Research Description

Mahil studies the structural dynamics of Class C GPCRs and arrestin-3 (β-arrestin-2) using biophysical, biochemical, and NMR methods. His work reveals how conformational changes regulate signaling and allostery, guiding the design of more selective therapeutics.

jacqueline.leite@northwestern.edu

PhD - 

Research Description

Jacqueline Leite’s research focuses on unraveling the role of Na⁺,K⁺-ATPase α3 isoform and cardiotonic steroids in Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood. Using animal models, she investigates behavioral and biochemical pathways to develop innovative treatments, bringing hope to affected children.

qianru.li@northwestern.edu

PhD - Wuhan University

Research Description

Qianru’s research focuses on RNA translation. She is interested in developing new experimental approaches to understand genome-wide RNA translational regulation. She also studies the roles of translation factors underlying cancer progression, which is expected to offer biological insights into translational dysregulation in cancer.

aashutosh.shetti@northwestern.edu

Tarry Building

PhD - University of Illinois Chicago

Connect with Aashutosh on LinkedIn

Research Description

Aashu's research focuses on the role of Ca2+ in astrocyte function and how alterations in intracellular Ca2+ levels are associated with neuroinflammation. His work evaluates the ion channels, specifically Orai1, which regulate Ca2+ flow within cells and if genetic manipulations of these channels in astrocytes could prove beneficial in neurodegenerative diseases.

During his PhD, he studied the role of blood-brain barrier disruption in Type-2 Diabetes and how impairments in insulin trafficking into the brain can make the Type-2 diabetic brain vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease.

tlawlsrhs@gmail.com

PhD - Sogang University

Research Description

Jingon combines biophysical, biochemical, and cell-based approaches to study the molecular basis of partial agonism, functional selectivity, and allosteric signaling.

yuanfei.sun@northwestern.edu

PhD - Texas A&M University

Research Description

Yuanfei’s research focuses on computational analysis of single-cell spatial omics data in the context of cancer biology, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. Specifically, he is interested in developing computer vision algorithms to decipher multiplexed fluorescence imaging and utilizing machine learning and deep learning methods to model single-cell sequencing data. His research aims to characterize the tumor microenvironment, discover biomarkers, investigate tumor-neighboring cell interactions, and predict disease survival outcomes. During his PhD, he studied the application of language modeling and geometric learning techniques in encoding multi-modal protein data for predicting variant effects and enhancing protein engineering efforts.

fangjia@northwestern.edu

PhD - Harbin Medical University

Research Description

Fangjia studies the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters-mediated breast cancer metastasis. Fangjia also specializes in extracellular vesicles and Human papillomavirus in head and neck cancer.

PhD - University of California, Berkeley

Research Description

Sara's research focuses on using high-throughput biophysical techniques to investigate the sequence determinants of enzyme function.

virdjinija.vuchkovska@northwestern.edu

PhD - Loyola University Chicago

Research Description

dan.zhao@northwestern.edu

PhD - 

Research Description