Wells LabUCSF, Depts of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology
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Lab Members

Principal Investigator

Jim Wells, Ph.D.
Professor

University of California San Francisco
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Phone: 1-415-514-4498
Email: Jim.Wells at ucsf.edu
www.epernicus.com/jaw2

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Coordinators

Ninwe Maraha, Ph.D.
Lab Manager
Ph.D. Karolinska Institute
Phone: 1-415-502-6464
Email: ninwe.maraha at ucsf.edu

Kazuko Olson
Administration
Phone: 1-415-514-4757
Email: Kazuko.Olson at ucsf.edu

PostDocs

Wentao Chen, Ph.D.
Ph.D. The Scripps Research Institute
B.S. Fudan University
Project: Antibody Engineering
Email: wentao.chen at ucsf.edu

Zachary Hill, Ph.D.
Ph.D. University of Washington
B.S. University of Alaska Fairbanks
Project: Target Validation of Small-Molecule Inhibitors
Email: Zachary.Hill at ucsf.edu

Olivier Julien, Ph.D.
Ph.D. University of Alberta
B.S. Université Laval
Project: Proteomics
Email: Olivier.Julien at ucsf.edu

Kevin Leung, Ph.D.
Ph.D. and B.M.Sc. University of Western Ontario
Project: Membrane proteomics
Email: kevin.leung at ucsf.edu

Kurt Mou, Ph.D.
Ph.D. California Institute of Technology
B.S. National Taiwan University
Project: Membrane Proteome
Email: Yun.Mou at ucsf.edu

Duy Nguyen, Ph.D.
Ph.D. University of Cambridge, U.K.
B.A. Franklin and Marshall College
Project: CRISPR engineering
Email: Duy.Nguyen at ucsf.edu

Amy Weeks, Ph.D.
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley
B.S. Massachusetts of Institute of Technology
Project: Subtiligase engineering
Email: weeksam at gmail.com

Graduate Students

Emily Kang
B.S. UC San Diego
Project: NK surfaceomics
Email: Emily.Kang at ucsf.edu

Alex Martinko
B.A. University of Colorado, Boulder
Project: Oncogene Induced Modulation of the Extracellular Proteome
Email: Alexander.Martinko at ucsf.edu

Sam Pollock
B.A. University of Chicago
Project: NEDDylator
Email: sam.pollock at ucsf.edu

Nicholas Rettko
B.S. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Project: Senescence
Email: Nicholas.Rettko at ucsf.edu

Ashley Smart
B.A. Pomona College
Project: Apoptotic Nodes
Email: Ashley.Smart at ucsf.edu

Hai Tran
B.S. Emory University
Project: Natural Products
Email: htran at ucsf.edu

Recombinant Antibody Network

Nathanael Gabler
B.S. Vanderbilt University
Project: Proteome-Antibody Center
Email: nathanael.gabler at ucsf.edu

Michael Hornsby, Ph.D.
Ph.D. University of California, Davis
B.S. Oregon State University
Project: Proteome-Antibody Center
Email: michael.hornsby at ucsf.edu

Jia Liu
M.Sc. University of Sheffield, UK
Project: Proteome-Antibody Center
Email: jia.liu at ucsf.edu

Karolina Wypisniak
M.Sc. Humboldt University of Berlin
B.S. University Hamburg
Project: Proteome-Antibody Center
Email: Karolina.Wypisniak at recombinant-antibodies.org

Lydia Zhang
B.A. Bowdoin College
Project: Proteome-Antibody Center
Email: lydia.zhang at ucsf.edu

Lab Assistants

Maria Diaz
Lab Technician
Email: maria-elena.diaz at ucsf.edu

Ula Soegianto
Lab Technician
Email: ulasoegianto at yahoo.com

ALUMNI

Nick Agard, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Substrates of inflammatory caspases and cellular enzymology
Current position: Scientist at Codexis

Mary Betlach, Ph.D.
Former Academic Coordinator
Project: Fund-raising
Current position: enjoy your retirement Mary!

Chan Hee Choi
B.S. University of Chicago
Project: Proteome-Antibody Center

Emily Crawford, Ph.D.
Former Graduate Student
Ph.D. University of California, San Francisco
A.B. Bryn Mawr College
Project: Evolution of caspases and their substrates
Current position: Postdoc, University of California, San Francisco

Deb Datta, Ph.D.
Former Graduate Student
Project: Allosteric circuitry and natural regulators of caspase-1
Current position: UCSF Medical School

Juan Diaz, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Split Constructs
Current position: Scientist, Eureka Therapeutics Inc.

Allison Doak
Former Lab manager
Current position: Sales, VWR

Junjun Gao, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Conformationally selective antibodies
Current position: Viral biochemistry group, Roche Palo Alto

Dan Gray, Ph.D.
Former Graduate Student
Project: Chemically-inducible proteases.
Current position: Scientist at Warp Drive Bio

Gerald Hsu, M.D. Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Apoptotic biomarkers
Current position: Harvard Medical School

Sean Hudson, Ph.D.
Ph.D. University of Cambridge, UK
B.S. University of Adelaide, Australia
Current position: Australia

JT Koerber, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley
B.S. University of Illinois
Current position: Scientist, Genentech

Brian Lee, Ph.D.
Former Specialist
Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. University of Chicago
Project: Proteome-Antibody Center
Current position: Director of Visolis inc.

Peter Lee, Ph.D.
Ph.D. The Scripps Research Institute
B.S. University of California, Berkeley
Project: Antibody Engineering
Current position: Scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb

Sami Mahrus, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Global Profiling of Proteolysis in Apoptosis
Current position: Scientist, Genentech

Paul Marinec, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. University of Michigan
B.S. University of Michigan
Project: Antibody Engineering
Current position: Research Scientist, Denali

Chris McClendon, Ph.D.
Former Graduate Student
Project: Computational modeling of allostery
Current position: Postdoc, University of California, San Diego

Rong Mao, Ph.D.
Former Academic Coordinator

Current position: Research Associate, Stanford

Tet Matsuguchi, Ph.D.
Ph.D. University of California, San Francisco
B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Project: Proteome-Antibody Center
Current Position: Director of Lab automation, Driver Group

Charles Morgan, Ph.D.
Former Graduate Student
Project: Apoptotic Nodes
Current position: Christine Mirzayan Science Policy Fellow, National Academies of Sciences

Huy Nguyen, M.D.
Former Fellow, Hematology/Oncology
Project: Identification of apoptotic peptide signatures for use as diagnostic biomarkers in hematologic malignancies.
Current position: Kaiser Permanente Moanalua Medical Center, Hawaii

Enrique Perez-Paya, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Caspase enzymology
Current location: Cipf – Csic, Valencia, Spain

Alexei Polishchuk, M.D. Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
M.D./Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania
A.B. Princeton University

Jason Porter, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. University of Arizona
B.S. Millersville University of Pennsylvania
Project: Split Constructs
Current position: AAAS S&T Policy Fellow, US Agency for International Development, Washington DC

Yingfeng Qiao, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Tethering of RAS
Current position: UCSF School of Pharmacy

Justin Rettenmaier, Ph.D.
Former Graduate Student
Project: Small Molecule Activators of Kinases
Current position: Postdoc, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

Jack Sadowsky, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Allosteric modulation of protein kinases.
Current position: Scientist at Genentech

Julia Seaman, Ph.D.
Former Graduate Student
B.A. Pomona College
Project: Apoptosis and biomarkers in mice

Kazutaka Shimbo, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. University of Tokyo
B.S. Hokkaido University
Project: Apoptotic markers in cancer cells
Current position: Ajinomoto, Japan

Marja Tarr
Administration
Happy retirement!

Nathan Thomsen, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley
B.S. Whitman College
Current position: Scientist at Gilead

Hikari Yoshihara, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Kinase tethering and tags for N-terminomics
Current position: Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Switzerland

Pete Wildes , Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Extracellular protease signaling
Current position: Senior Scientist / Project Leader at DuPont Industrial Biosciences

Arun Wiita, M.D. Ph.D.
M.D./Ph.D. Columbia University
B.S. Princeton University
Project: Human apoptotic biomarkers
Current Position: Assitant Professor, UCSF

Dennis Wolan, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Project: Structure and regulation of caspases by small molecules
Current position: Assitant Professor, The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego

Julie Zorn, Ph.D.
Former Graduate Student
Ph.D. University of California, San Francisco
B.S. New York University
Project: Small Molecule Activators of Procaspases
Current position: Postdoc, University of California, Berkeley

Min Zhuang, Ph.D.
Former Postdoctoral Fellow
Ph.D. University of Tennessee / St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
B.S. Nanjing University
Project: NEDDylator
Current position: Assitant Professor, ShanghaiTech University