Lab Members
Postdoctoral and Visiting Researchers
Santhosh Gatreddi is a structural biologist who received his PhD in Biotechnology from the University
of Hyderabad. Santhosh carries out biochemical, mechanistic, and structural characterization
of enzymes that use the nickel-pincer nucleotide, and he studies an associated nickel
uptake system. He is jointly mentored by Dr. Hausinger and Professor Jian Hu in BMB.
Shramana Chatterjee is a structural biochemist who received her PhD from the Crystallography and Molecular
Biology Division of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kolkata, India. She
is co-mentored by Dr. Hausinger and Dr. Hu of BMB. Her initial project focused on
an [FeS]-containing form of the LarE sulfur transferase that participates in the synthesis
of the nickel-pincer nucleotide. Currently she is characterizing bacterial, fungal,
and ancestral sequence reconstruction versions of the ethylene-forming enzyme.
Yali Wang is Biochemical Engineer who received her PhD from Xiamen University, and received
additional training with Prof. David Baker on creating protein shells at the University
of Washington. Her work focuses on engineering bacterial microcompartments to contain
2-aminophenol-1,6-dioxygenase, an Fe(II)-containing enzyme and to characterize the
effects of confinement on enzyme activity. She is a member of the DOE-supported Energy
Frontiers Research Center on campus.
Aiko Turmo received her PhD in Biochemistry at MSU in 2022, worked as a Senior Scientist at
Clever Carnivore for about a year, then returned to the Hausinger lab as a Research
Associate. She studies the biosynthesis and utilization of the nickel-pincer nucleotide
cofactor. Her projects include further analysis of the LarC nickel insertase by structural
and mutational approaches, examination of the DUF362-containing LarA homologs, and
investigation of other aspects of cofactor formation or use.
Graduate Students
Jorge Nevarez is a chemistry student who is studying enzymes that utilize the nickel-pincer nucleotide
complex, but are not related to lactate racemase.
Undergraduate Students
Adam Mansour is a BMB student who assists Aiko in her work on nickel-pincer nucleotide-related projects.
Bryce Delaney, majoring in Microbiology, does general laboratory cleanup and assists Shramana in her studies.
Abby Thompson is a Genomics and Molecular Genetics student who does lab cleanup activities and assists Jorge in his work on nickel-pincer nucleotide-related projects.