 | Katie Ullman Katie grew up in the Ann Arbor, Michigan area and received a BA from Northwestern University. She then attended Stanford University for her PhD studies under the guidance of Jerry Crabtree. Katie joined Douglass Forbes' group at UCSD for her postdoctoral fellowship and became immersed in trying to understand the nuclear pore complex. She received a Career Award from Burroughs Wellcome and more recently was named a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar. She coleads the Cell Response and Regulation Program in the Cancer Center. |
 | Suzanne Elgort Suzanne received her bachelor's degree in biology from UC San Diego in 1994 and worked in the biotech industry in San Diego for more than six years. Suzanne joined the Ullman lab in 2002. Her current research examines the regulation of Nup153 function during the mammalian cell cycle. In addition to her project, Suzanne is also responsible for general lab organization and for keeping things running smoothly. Suzanne's interests and hobbies include rock climbing, spending time with her two pups, and more climbing with her accident-prone husband. |
 | KinHoe Chow KinHoe, originally from Malaysia, received his bachelor degree in 2003 at Mississippi State University where he stayed to do research in Justin Courcelle's lab (see JBC 279:3492). He joined the Molecular Biology Graduate Program here in 2004 and KinHoe tackled the connection between the nuclear pore and the SUMO machinery as the topic of his thesis. KinHoe received a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association. He graduated summer 2011 and is doing an interim post-doc before heading on. |
 | Doug Mackay Doug grew up in the Salt Lake area and was an undergraduate at the University of Utah. He then relocated to Irvine, CA, where he completed his graduate work in the lab of Xing Dai at UC-Irvine, studying transcriptional regulation during embryonic development. Doug started working in the Ullman lab in the Fall of 2005 with an emphasis on using live imaging to study the roles of Nup153 during cell division. Doug was awarded the Michael Schmidt Postdoctoral Fellowship from the American Cancer Society in January 2007 and is now a trainee on the Developmental Biology Training Grant. Doug is married and has twins (boy and girl) who keep him very busy when he is not at work. |
 | Marta Fay Marta grew up in various places around the state of Washington and attended the University of Oregon with a year abroad at the University of Bristol. After receiving a BS in Biochemistry in 2005, she taught English in Thailand for six months and then worked as a technician for John Scott at Oregon Health and Science University. She entered the Molecular Biology Graduate Program at the University of Utah in 2007 and joined our lab in the summer of 2008. Her research focuses on a new project that involves understanding how translation is regulated. When she is not in the lab, Marta likes to hike, run, travel, and is learning to ski. Marta is a trainee on the Multidisciplinary Cancer Research Training Grant. |
 | James Clegg James joined the lab in the Fall of 2010. He is a Chemistry major and, yes, he does look familiar... He's Emily's younger brother (cf –Lab Candids, Former Lab Personnel) and as a result we have high expectations for him –which he is living up to! Currently, he is learning the ropes of recombinant protein production. |
 | Kim Uchida Kim started in the lab summer of 2011, working alongside Matt and Marta on the Pdcd4-PRMT5 project. She is from SLC and is studying Bioengineering at the U. She's currently interested in going on to medical school. Outside of lab, she likes lots of sports and outdoor activities, including playing and coaching soccer. |
 | Merima Beganovic |
Former Lab Personnel
Lea Huang, Palo Alto, CA
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Lea was the first lab member recruited to work in the Ullman Lab. Although her stint was short-lived (she had to relocate about six months after being hired), Lea was instrumental in setting up the lab and in initiating many studies focused on Nup153 characterization. After leaving the lab, she went to work for ICOS in Seattle and then in 2006 moved to the Bay Area and is now working at Intermune, Inc.
Deborah Duricka, Washington State University
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Deborah served as a lab specialist from 1999–2002. During her time here, she utilized Xenopus oocytes to investigate the role of Nup153 in both protein and RNA export from the nucleus. In addition to currently working in the Krueger Lab at Washington State University, Deborah is also pursuing a PhD in Neuroscience.
Ammon Fager, University of Vermont
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Ammon first served as a summer intern in 1999 and then as a lab technician from 1999–2002. Ammon was focused on characterizing RNA pol III transcription in synthetic nuclei. In addition, his work also contributed to many different projects in the lab. He is currently an MD-PhD student at the University of Vermont. Ammon and family (!) visit the lab in summer 2006.
Brian Bennion, Myriad Genetics, Inc.
Brian worked in the lab as an undergraduate student and then as a lab technician from 1999–2003. While Brian was in the lab, he assisted in characterizing the RNA binding properties of Nup153, with Jennifer Ball, and also generated many Nup153-specific reagents. After working for a few years at Myriad Genetics, Brian is now taking classes and working part-time for the military.
Anne Robertson, University of Utah
Anne was an undergraduate student in the lab from 2000–2002. With Jin Liu, Anne was focused on the characterization of the Zinc-finger module of Nup153. Anne is currently a graduate student at the University of Utah, completing an interdisciplinary master's degree in communications and civil engineering.
Jin Liu, PhD, Huntsman Cancer Institute
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Jin was a postdoctoral fellow in the lab from 2001–2004. In the short time she was here, Jin determined that the COPI complex functions in nuclear envelope breakdown and is recruited by Nup153. She then moved to do a postdoc with Dan Starr at University of California - Davis, working on nuclear positioning in C. elegans. She recently returned to Salt Lake City and is currently a research associate in the Bernard Lab down the hall.
Christian Dimaano, PhD, Bristol-Meyers Squibb
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Christian was a graduate student in the lab from 1999-2004 and had a pre-doctoral fellowship from the NIH. While in the lab, Christian mapped a novel RNA binding domain in the N-terminus of Nup153 and characterized its properties in collaboration with Jennifer Ball. After postdoctoral studies in the Babst lab in the Biology Department at the University of Utah, Christian joined Myriad Genetics as a Staff Scientist in 2007, then the spin-off company, Myrexis, and now is a Medical Science Liaison at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Seattle.
Jennifer Ball, PhD, Washington University
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Jennifer was a graduate student in the lab from 1999–2004. Jennifer's project in the lab was to characterize the RNA ligands that associate with the RNA binding domain of Nup153. She showed that Nup153 associates with an array of single-stranded RNAs at sites that are enriched in guanine. In collaboration with Christian Dimaano, she also tested how the association between RNA and Nup153 contributes to the fate of mRNA in vivo. Jennifer went on to complete a Clinical Chemistry Fellowship Program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and now lives in Ohio. Raleigh joins the family October 1, 2007.
Pei-Wen Chu, University of Utah
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Originally from Taiwan, Pei-Wen became a volunteer in the lab in 2003 and then a technician in the fall of 2004. She helped in characterizing interactions with the zinc fingers of Nup153 and in generating new antibody reagents. In the fall of 2005, she entered the Graduate Program in Neurobiology Program at the University of Utah from which she earned her PhD in 2010.
Tracy Zundel, Medical College of Wisconsin
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Tracy joined the lab in 2002 and worked as a lab aide until graduating with a degree in Biochemistry in spring 2005. He became the resident guru of VectorNTI and the go-to person for generating a new construct. He is now an enthusiastic medical student.
Jason Woodbury, Bountiful, Utah
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Jason was an undergraduate lab aide from 2003–2005 and majored in bioengineering at the University of Utah. He assisted in various projects in our lab, churning out purified antibodies and recombinant proteins. In the summer of 2003, he was an AHA intern in Dr. Sheldon Litwin's lab. He also did an honors project in bioengineering during his senior year, helping to create a 3-D computer model based on a canine heart for electrophysiological simulations.
Amy Prunuske, University of Minnesota, Duluth
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Amy came to graduate school in 2000. She was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship and a University of Utah Graduate Research Fellowship during her tenure here. Her thesis, which she defended in January 2006, centered on understanding the role of the nuclear pore proteins Nup153 and Nup358 in breakdown of the nuclear envelope at mitosis. Amy next went to University of Wisconsin at Madison where she was a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Elizabeth Craig. Amy moved to Minnesota, with Jake and their three (!) sons -Ben, Owen, and Leo (6/11) - where she is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, Duluth as of Fall 2011. Amy, Jake, and Ben welcome Owen in July 2006.
Amber Bilak, University of Colorado, Boulder
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Amber joined the lab as a technician in 2003 after returning from two years in the Peace Corps teaching high school biology and math in Namibia. She worked on the question of how Nup153 recognizes RNA and set up gel shift analyses as well as SELEX strategies in the lab. In August 2006 she joined the Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology graduate program at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Amber has joined Tin Tin Su's lab and was sighted at the 2008 Fly Meeting by Maria in the Beckerle lab.
Eydie Kurchan, Villanova University
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Eydie was a postdoc in the lab for just over a year (2005–2006). She came after receiving her PhD in biochemistry with Dr. Bruce Bowler at the University of Denver. In the short time she was here, she made significant strides in characterizing the RNA binding domain of Nup153, both in deciphering its RNA recognition properties and in streamlining a recombinant prep that could be used to take a structural approach. When her husband got a job offer too good to refuse back east, Eydie joined him there after a few months of "batching it." She is now the proud mama of Maxim (as of 5/21/07) and Jocelyn (8/17/10) and is a Staff Chemist at Villanova University.
Todd Clark
Todd was an undergrad lab aide from 2004–2006. He majored in bioengineering and was known for posting highly creative signage in the lab.
Meda Higa, PhD, York College
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Meda was an undergrad at University of California, Santa Cruz and a student in the lab from 2000 – 2006. She was supported in part by the Genetics Training Grant. Meda collaborated with Steve Alam in the Sundquist lab to understand the structure of the Nup zinc finger and how it provides an interface for the partner protein Ran. She headed to U. Penn in the Spring 2007 to join the lab of Dr. Robert Doms. AS of Fall 2011 she is an Assistant Professor at York College of Pennsylvania.
Samantha Smith
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Sam is from Dallas, Texas, where apparently she became quite attached to certain sports teams (see e-mail address). Her educational path took her many places, from Austin to Provo to the Caribbean, not to mention Salt Lake City. She joined the lab as a graduate student, but after a year (2006–2007) she decided to leave—and no doubt we'll be hearing of her entrepreneurial successes soon!
Emily Clegg (now Barker), Case Western University
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Emily Clegg joined the lab in January 2005 as an undergraduate Lab Aide. She worked alongside Amy and then KinHoe and spent one summer doing a research internship at Idaho National Laboratory. Emily graduated in Dec. 2007, got married, and headed out to Cleveland, where she started as a graduate student in the Chemistry Dept. at Case Western in January 2008. She was awarded an NIH graduate fellowship in 2010 and she and Sam welcomed William to their family in early 2011.
Bora Jang, Korea
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Bora is from South Korea and spent some time in San Diego as an exchange student in high school. While majoring in biology at the University of Utah, she joined the Ullman Lab in September 2007 as a volunteer lab aide. After one year, she returned to Korea to be with her family.
Masaki Makise
Masaki is from Japan where he obtained his Ph.D. from Okayama University and then worked at Kumamoto University. He started in the Ullman lab in April 2008. While in the lab he made legendary numbers of constructs and cell lines, and used these to look at the connection between pore reassembly and cytokinesis, as well as the network of interactions that Nup50 takes part in. In the Spring of 2011 he returned to Japan, where he has a position as a pharmacist. He is also an associate professor at SOJU University in Japan.
Craig Elder
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Craig worked as an undergraduate lab aide from 2006-2011. He was also a high school summer intern in 2003, so we came to know him well and always enjoyed his good humor and his very efficient help in the lab. His major was Political Science, but he also took lots of science classes and is interested in medicine and health policy.
Sunita Shankaran
Originally from India, Sunita joined the lab in the Fall of 2008, following PhD and postdoctoral studies in Germany. She studied the process of nuclear envelope breakdown and developed a real-time in vitro assay in which to decipher molecules and mechanisms that are important for this process. In August 2011 she joined the lab of Dr. Martin Tristani-Firouzi here at the Cardiovascular Research and Training Institute.
Matt Powers
Matt was a graduate student in our lab from 2006-2010. He discovered the interaction between PDCD4 and PRMT5 and, along with Marta, characterized this pathway in breast cancer. After an interim postdoctoral stint, jointly mentored by Alana Welm, Matt and family headed to Buffalo. Minnesota, that is. We are expecting updates soon on which of his many creative talents Matt chooses to build on.
Lab Transients
SUMMER 2009
Tyler Jarrett
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Summer intern from Gonzaga University
SUMMER 2008
Vishesh Agrawal
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Summer intern from U. Penn.
SUMMER 2007
Jane Enyeart
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Summer intern from Youngstown State University, Ohio
SUMMER 2006
Francisca Maertens
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Summer intern from Carroll College, Missouri. As of fall 2007, Francisca is a medical student at the University of Chicago.
SUMMER 2005
Artur Matysik
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Summer intern from Jagiellonian University in Kracow, Poland
SUMMER 2004
Sarah Hilton
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Intern from Wellesley College, now working at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
SUMMER 2003
Craig Elder
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High school student. Now attending the University of Utah and working in our lab.
SUMMER 2002
Zack Zavodni
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Summer intern from Northwestern University; now a medical student at Duke University
SUMMER 2000
Christopher Ong
High school student
SUMMER 1999
Ammon Fager
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Intern from University of Southern California; currently an MD/PhD student at the University of Vermont
