2024-2025 Fowler Fellows
Eric Pang is a fifth-year Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology (BMSB) graduate student in the labs of Drs. Steven G. Clarke and Jose Rodriguez. He earned his B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UC Santa Barbara, where he developed protein-based biosensors under Professor Kevin Plaxco and investigated protein complexes involved in peroxisome biogenesis with Professor Brooke Gardner.
For his graduate work, Eric is interfacing contemporary methods in structural biology and biochemistry to investigate a novel mechanism that mitigates spontaneous age-related protein damages. His work employs single-particle cryoEM and native top-down mass spectrometry to define the structure-function relationship of PCMTD1, a potential E3 ubiquitin ligase that targets damaged proteins for degradation. This research marks the first effort to characterize a new class of enzymes responsible for preserving proteomic stability against age-related protein damages.
Xuelang (Maymay) Mu is a fifth-year Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) graduate student in Dr. Tamir Gonen’s lab at UCLA. She earned her B.S. in Life Science from Peking University and trained under Dr. Nieng Yan at Tsinghua University, focusing on the functional and structural studies of membrane proteins. As a postgrad fellow at Yale University in Dr. Nancy Carrasco’s lab, she investigated the mechanism of a disease-related sodium/iodide transporter.
At UCLA, Maymay’s research focuses on the structural mechanisms of membrane proteins involved in cancer, particularly the amino acid transporter SLC38A9 and its role in the mTORC1 pathway. SLC38A9 is vital in cancer cell metabolism by regulating nutrient sensing, and its dysregulation contributes to tumor growth. By combining structural biology techniques with functional assays, Maymay aims to uncover how SLC38A9 mediates cancer cell survival and identify potential therapeutic targets in nutrient acquisition pathways for cancer treatment.
Andrew Goring is a sixth-year graduate student in the Biochemistry, Molecular, and Structural Biology department mentored by Prof’s Robert T. Clubb and Joseph A. Loo. Andrew received his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he researched the biophysics and structural kinetics of protein fibrillization as it relates to neurodegenerative disease with Prof Songi Han.
At UCLA, Andrew’s research focuses on using novel approaches in proteomics to characterize the molecular mechanisms that allow Gram positive bacterial pathogens to mount and sustain an infection. Specifically, he has been able to spatially localize heme-acquisition proteins utilized by diphtheria-causing Corynebacterium diphtheriae and characterize their role in virulence using novel in-situ native top-down proteomics technology. These approaches to spatial and functional bacterial proteomics shed light on a novel hemophore-mediated virulence mechanism utilized by Gram positive pathogens. Furthermore, this methodology can be applied to a broad range of omics-level protein-protein and protein-ligand biophysics, showing tremendous potential to further our understanding of host-pathogen interactions.
Miranda Villanueva is a fifth year Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) graduate student in Dr. Keriann Backus’ group. Prior to UCLA, Miranda earned her B.A from Williams College where she worked in the lab of Dr. Kaie Hart applying biophysical approaches to understand the sequence determinants of stability in beta-lactamase homologs. Afterwards, Miranda worked to decipher long-term metabolic and behavioral outcomes of early life stress as a research assistant at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
At UCLA, Miranda’s research is focused on using chemoproteomic methods to characterize the cholesterol interactome. She is using existing diazirine photoaffinity labeling approaches and has also developed and deployed a novel photolabeling workflow that can quantify solvent accessibility changes of proteins. Miranda is working to extend this platform to identify previously uncharacterized cholesterol interactors with a goal of improving our understanding of cholesterol transport.
Previous Fowler Fellows
2023 Cindy Wang (C. Clarke/S. Clarke lab), Alexandra Turmon (Backus lab), Rohith Nagari (Tontonoz lab), Jee Yun Han (Boutros lab)
2022 Declan Evans (Houk lab), Ashley Julio (Backus lab), Alex Stevens (Zhou lab), Cody Gillman (Gonen lab), Troy Lowe (S. Clarke lab)
2021 Weixian Deng (Wohlschlegel/Plath labs), Sean Jiang (Eisenberg lab), Maria Flores (Rodriguez lab), Carter Lantz (Loo lab), Logan Richards (Rodriguez lab)
2020 Jiahui Lu (Eisenberg lab), Callie Glynn (Rodriguez lab), Janine Fu (Loo lab)
2019 David Boyer (Eisenberg lab), John Muroski (Loo lab), Orlando Martinez (Clubb lab)
2018 Michael Hughes (Eisenberg lab), Kanishk Jain (Clarke lab), William Barshop (Wohlschlegel lab), Yuxi Liu (Yeates lab)
2017 Brendan Amer (Clubb lab), Jeffrey Vinokur (Bowie lab), Anna Sahakyan (Plath lab)
2016 Henry Chan (Feigon lab), Smriti Sangwan (Eisenberg lab), Nicholas Woodall (Bowie lab)
2014 Dan McNamara (Yeates lab), Jena Quick-Cleveland (Guo lab), Nicholas Wu (Sun lab)
2013 Alex Jacobitz (Clubb lab), Alexander Patananan (S. Clarke lab), Carly Ferguson (Loo lab)
2012 Benjamin Kuryan (Carey lab), Letian Xie (C. Clarke lab), Anni Zhao (Eisenberg lab)
2011 Timothy Anderson (Clubb lab), Ian Barr (Guo lab), Soohong Kim (Weiss lab)
2010 Zeynep Durer (Reiser lab), Rachel Senturia (Guo lab), Zurita-Lopez (S. Clarke lab)
2009 Luki Goldschmidt (Eisenberg lab), Kristofer Webb (S. Clarke lab), Sheng Yin (Loo lab)
2008 Nathan Joh (Bowie lab), Neil King (Yeates lab)
