People

Alexander Serganov

Principal Investigator

Alexander Serganov joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology of NYU School of Medicine in May 2011. He graduated from the Moscow State University with a B.Sc. degree in Molecular Biology. During his Ph.D. studies he split his time between the Maria Garber laboratory at the Institute of Protein Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushchino, Russia), the Bernard Ehresmann laboratory at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (Strasbourg, France), and the Claude Portier laboratory at the Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology (Paris, France). His Ph.D. work focused on the regulation of gene expression during ribosome biogenesis. He continued his studies as a postdoc in the Ehresmann laboratory. He then joined Dinshaw J. Patel’s laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA) to study molecular mechanisms of RNA-mediated catalysis and gene expression control. He championed several seminal projects including the first three-dimensional structures of the non-coding regulatory RNA elements termed riboswitches and the first structure of a ribozyme catalyzing a synthetic reaction.

Maria Ascension Ariza Mateos

Postdoctoral Fellow

Maria received a M.Sc. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Granada (Spain). She did her Ph.D. research on regulation of viral translation in the laboratory of Dr. Jordi Gómez at the Instituto de Parasitología y Biomedicina López-Neyra (IPBLN-CSIC). She conducted her first postdoc on studies of genetic variability of RNA viruses in the laboratory of Dr. Esteban Domingo at the Centro de Biología Molecular Severo-Ochoa (CSIC-UAM), Madrid, Spain. She is working on determining the molecular basis of Fragile X Syndrome.

A. Ariza-Mateos and J. Gómez. Viral tRNA mimicry from a biocommunicative perspective. Frontiers in Microbiology. 2017; 8: 2395.

A. Ariza-Mateos, R. Díaz-Toledano, T.M. Block, S. Prieto-Vega, A. Birk, J. Gómez. Geneticin stabilizes the opened conformation of the 5′ region of hepatitis C virus RNA and inhibits viral replication. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 2015; 60: 925?935.

A. Ariza-Mateos, S. Prieto-Vega, R. Díaz-Toledano, A. Birk, H. Szeto, I. Mena, A. Berzal-Herranz, J. Gómez. RNA self-cleavage activated by ultraviolet light-induced oxidation. Nucleic Acids Research. 2011; 40: 1748?1766.

Ashok Noothanaganti

Postdoctoral Fellow

Ashok Noothanaganti received a M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from Kakatiya University (Warangal, India). He conducted Ph.D. research on chemical synthesis and characterization of nucleic acid conjugates in the laboratory of Dr. S. G. Srivatsan at the IISER-Pune. He is currently focused on the development of novel types of antibiotics.

Selected recent publications:

Nuthanakanti, A., Boerneke, M. A., Hermann, T., Srivatsan, S. G. Structure of the ribosomal RNA decoding site containing a selenium-modified responsive fluorescent ribonucleoside probe. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017; 56: 2640?2644.

Nuthanakanti, A., Srivatsan, S. G. Surface-tuned and metal-ion-responsive supramolecular gels based on thymidine nucleolipids ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces. 2017; 9: 22864?22874.

Nuthanakanti, A., Srivatsan, S. G. Hierarchical self-assembly of switchable nucleolipid supramolecular gels based on environmentally-sensitive fluorescent nucleoside analogs. Nanoscale. 2016; 8: 3607?3619.

Abhishek Kaushik

Postdoctoral Fellow

Abhishek received a M.Sc. in Microbial Gene Technology from the Madurai Kamaraj University (India). He conducted a Ph.D. study on biochemical and structural characterization of cysteine synthase complex in the laboratory of Dr. S. Kumaran at CSIR-IMTECH (Chandigarh)-Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi). After a short stint with GE Healthcare, he joined the laboratory to develop new antibacterials and study mRNA degradation.

Selected recent publications:

  • Abhishek Kaushik, Mary K. Ekka and S. Kumaran. Two distinct assembly states of cysteine synthase complex are regulated by enzyme-substrate cognate pairs. Biochemistry. 2017; 56: 2385-2399.

  • Appu Kumar Singh*, Mary Krishna Ekka*, Abhishek Kaushik* et al. Facilitated dissociation of competitive inhibitor by substrate reveal a novel competitive-allostery mechanism. *Equal contribution. Biochemistry. 2017; 56: 5011-5025.

Katie Wang

Undergraduate Student

Katie is currently a third-year undergraduate student at NYU’s College of Arts and Science, pursuing a B.A. in Chemistry with minors in Studio Art and Child & Adolescent Mental Health Studies. After she graduates, she hopes to attend medical school and later obtain a graduate degree in Chemistry. She is currently working with María on determining the molecular basis of Fragile X Syndrome.

Past members

Jacob Weaver, Scientist, Neochromosome

Mengjie Liu, Scientist, Janssen Pharmaceuticals

Alla Peselis, Associate Scientific Director, Lighthouse Medical Communications

Shivali Patel, Scientist, Ananke Therapeutics

Nikita Vasilyev, Senior Scientist, Regeneron

Ang Gao, Assistant Professor, Peking Union Medical College

Wenqian Duan