I have an interdisciplinary educational background including a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. Nevertheless, in recent years I have been involved in a series of research projects with a shared focus within life science and biology, from pharmacodynamics studies aiming for target drug release to revealing the molecular mechanism of functional amyloid polymerization in bacteria. In the past two years my primary research focus has been on the “structure and assembly of functional amyloids.” Through this research I have come to realize how exciting, yet challenging, it is to reveal the structure and function of proteins, because this can not be accomplished without a complex set of expertise and techniques and through extensive collaboration across various disciplines.

In the past years I have obtained a Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in biology. As a result of my study program, I have gained a broad educational background in research related to health and disease. I got the chance to participate in divers research projects: from a project investigating the effect of oral bacteria on cell proliferation in the human oral cavity, to research focussing on the role of genes in the Campylobacter chemotaxis system. The researchers and experts I have got the opportunity to work with inspired me and gave me an insight into the numerous challenges and possibilities that lay within microbiological research.

After receiving my bachelor’s degree in microbiology and cell sciences from the University of Florida, I continued my education at The Ohio State University where I earned a master’s degree in education and completed three years of biomedical science graduate coursework and research. Most recently at the University of California, Berkeley, I had multiple roles including researcher, lecturer, and manager for undergraduate affairs. My research experiences range from genetic and cellular studies of animal models of disease to employing genome editing to generate cell lines that facilitate the study of actin nucleation and how intracellular pathogens hijack this process. My current research interests include understanding the fundamental mechanisms that regulate host-pathogen interactions, specifically how bacteria adjust to changes in the host environment. The Briegel research group and the Institute of Biology provide the tools, expertise, and support to do this with unprecedented clarity.

My interest in the physical sciences started when I was a student at a community college in California. What first started as a necessary 'general education' course in chemistry soon became a personal fascination and career goal. When I transferred to U.C. Davis to earn my bachelor's degree, I immediately started working in a university biochemistry lab that studies secondary metabolites in plants through biochemical and genetics methods. Fortunately for me, the PI of the lab gave a lot of responsibility and freedom in the lab to undergraduates like myself, which sparked my desire to continue science research at the graduate level. After graduating UC Davis, I started working in the lab or Dr. Brian Crane at Cornell University as a graduate student and was introduced to the world of structural biology. My projects here specifically focused on studying the structure and function of proteins involved in bacterial chemotaxis, primarily through crystallography. Now, in Dr. Ariane's Briegel's lab, I am continuing to study bacterial chemotaxis pathways through electron microscopy techniques. As a recipient of the Leading Fellowship for international post-docs, I get the privilege of working in a collaborative environment in a fantastic lab and beautiful country!

I am a computational molecular biophysicist passionate about evolution of complexity and decentralized forms of governments.I am a postdoc at Leiden Universityin the Briegel Lab where I continue my studies in the evolution of chemotaxis networks and data sharing using blockchain technology.I am also one of the developers of the MiST3 database. I received my PhD in Physics with Igor Zhulin at Oak Ridge National Laband University of Tennessee. Next, I spent five years as a postdoctoral scholar at Caltechin the Jensen Labwhere I led the bioinformatics studies in macromolecular machineries and chemotaxis.In a distant past, I worked with Atomic Optical Clocksat the Time and Frequency Division at NISTsupervised by Chris Oatesand Flavio Caldas da Cruz.I am a co-founder of the Art+Science collective Schema47in Los Angeles and I am a member of the core team of the cryptocurrency FLO. I collaborate with the Brazilian Pirate Partyand Vote na Web.

I am interested in applying cryoEM to understand the fundamental dynamic processes and mechanisms of antigen-antibody binding and phage infection. I got my bachelor's degree in physics at Lanzhou University in 2017, then I was directly recommended as a PhD candidate free of examination and studied at Xi'an Jiaotong University. I have learned scientific research skills in the field of CryoEM with professor Lei Zhang. Now I appreciate that I can work in professor Ariane Briegel's group as a joint training doctoral student.

Microscopy and all its uses in biology have fascinated me from the start of my Bachelor’s degree of biology. I was fortunate to receive in-depth training in confocal microscopy during my first internship where I worked on answering research questions in the Zebrafish model. My microscopy training was further expanded during my Master’s degree internship in the Briegel lab. Here I learned how to use cryo-electron microscopy to study bacterial ultrastructure. Combining these two microscopy techniques with the molecular and microbial knowledge that I gained during my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree now allows me to focus on a wide range of research projects. These projects include: investigating the effect of curvature on the polarity of Vibrio cholerae and investigating the use of bacteriophages as a treatment for cholera infected Zebrafish larvae. All of this has been made possible in no small part by the expertise that surrounds me in the Briegel lab and the inspiring environment that I work in!

Microscopy and all its uses in biology have fascinated me from the start of my Bachelor’s degree of biology. I was fortunate to receive in-depth training in confocal microscopy during my first internship where I worked on answering research questions in the Zebrafish model. My microscopy training was further expanded during my Master’s degree internship in the Briegel lab. Here I learned how to use cryo-electron microscopy to study bacterial ultrastructure. Combining these two microscopy techniques with the molecular and microbial knowledge that I gained during my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree now allows me to focus on a wide range of research projects. These projects include: investigating the effect of curvature on the polarity of Vibrio cholerae and investigating the use of bacteriophages as a treatment for cholera infected Zebrafish larvae. All of this has been made possible in no small part by the expertise that surrounds me in the Briegel lab and the inspiring environment that I work in!

Microscopy and all its uses in biology have fascinated me from the start of my Bachelor’s degree of biology. I was fortunate to receive in-depth training in confocal microscopy during my first internship where I worked on answering research questions in the Zebrafish model. My microscopy training was further expanded during my Master’s degree internship in the Briegel lab. Here I learned how to use cryo-electron microscopy to study bacterial ultrastructure. Combining these two microscopy techniques with the molecular and microbial knowledge that I gained during my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree now allows me to focus on a wide range of research projects. These projects include: investigating the effect of curvature on the polarity of Vibrio cholerae and investigating the use of bacteriophages as a treatment for cholera infected Zebrafish larvae. All of this has been made possible in no small part by the expertise that surrounds me in the Briegel lab and the inspiring environment that I work in!