Dr. Ya-Ming Hou
Professor.

Thomas Jefferson University,
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Phone: (215) 503-4480.
Email: Ya-Ming.Hou@jefferson.edu

Professor Ya-Ming Hou received her B. S. from National Taiwan University in Agricultural Chemistry, her M.A. From University of California, Berkeley in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and her Ph.D. From University of California, Berkeley in Comparative Biochemistry in the laboratory of Professor Sung-Hou Kim. She was a postdoc fellow with Professor Paul Schimmel at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a visiting fellow with Professor Richard Giege at CNRS, Strasbourg, France. She joined the faculty of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Thomas Jefferson University in 1992 and is now a tenured Full Professor.

Howard Gamper
PhD: Research Asst. Professor

Howard.Gamper@jefferson.edu

I am interested in understanding both programmed and non-programmed tRNA frameshift on the ribosome at the molecular and kinetic levels.

Thomas Christian
MS: Senior Research Associate

thomas.christian@jefferson.edu

I am interested in understanding the molecular and structural mechanisms of tRNA methyltransferases. I would like to determine how specific methyltransferases recognize their tRNA targets and to explore strategies that these enzymes catalyze methyl transfer.

Isao Masuda
PhD: Research Instructor

isao.masuda@jefferson.edu

I am interested in the mechanism of translational frameshifting, a non-standard phenomenon in decoding genetic codes into proteins. I am going to examine how the tRNAs and ribosomes are involved in frameshifting using both molecular biological and biochemical approaches.

Sunita Maharjen

PhD: Postdoctoral fellow

I am interested in mitochondrial biology associated with tRNA mutations and neurodegenerative disease.

Yuko Nakano

PhD: Postdoctoral fellow

I am interested in the diverse post-transcriptional epigenetic modifications on tRNAs and how they regulate codon-specific gene expression.

YUKa YaMAKI

PhD: Postdoctoral fellow

I am interested in the function of the post-transcriptional modifications in RNAs. I would like to clarify the interaction between molecules that changes depending on the presence or absence of modifications.

Ateesha Negi

Postdoc Fellow

I am interested in using Nanopore long-read sequencing to explore how the dynamic world of RNA modifications within the Transcriptomics of neuron cells impact human health and disease

HonGJuan GUO

PhD: Postdoctoral fellow

I am interested in post-transcriptional modifications of tRNA in human health and disease.

Henri McGuigan

BS: PhD student of Jefferson

I am interested in developing cell-permeable, potent, and selective inhibitors that target bacterial tRNA methyl transferases. I am interested in using these inhibitors to regulate tRNA-dependent gene expression.

ThomAs GrAnt

Research Technician, Master’s program of Cell and Developmental Biology at Jefferson

I am interested in the fundamental biology of tRNA and their post-transcriptional modifications.

ANA BASSLER

Research Technician

I am interested in pushing the frontier forward on direct RNA sequencing using the Nanopore technology.

LILY TAYAG

Undergraduate student, Honors Institute of Jefferson

I am interested in the epigenetic markers associated with autoimmune diseases and gene therapy’s potential for treatment of such disorders.

Tamanaa Atrafi

Jefferson MD student

I am interested in how neurological disorders change the cellular tRNA pool to re-program gene expression.

Sonal Lakhani

Pre-Medical Student

I am interested in the roles of tRNAs in decoding the genetic code.

Alexandra will

Summer Student (2022)

Andrew Isopi (2023-2024) to a pharmaceutical company

Amir Dorsey (2021-2024) to U. Tennessee Medical School

LIndsay Adler (2023)

Miyu Enomoto (2022 ~ 2023, Tokyo Metropolitan University)

Nilay Yadav (2022)

Hiroya Tange, (2022, Japan)

Sitao Yin, (2021, Shanghai, China)