Brian K. Kay

Principal Investigator

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Brian K . Kay, Ph.D.

Professor & Head

bkay@uic.edu

....Brian is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Biological Sciences at UIC. He received his undergraduate and graduate training at the University of Chicago and Yale University, respectively, and then did post-doctoral training at NIH. Prior to arriving at UIC in 2007, he was an Assistant and Associate Professor at UNC-CH, Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Staff Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. His hobbies are running, crossword puzzles, desktop publishing, digital photography, and pestering his lab group.

Lab Members (in alphabetical order by last name)

Zengping Hao
Visiting Research Specialist
zphao@uic.edu

.....Zengping joined the lab in spring 2006. Her research focuses on isolating high-affinity and selective reagents by phage-display and expressing the soluble forms of the affinity reagents. Currently, she is isolating the antibodies of zebrafish proteins and expressing them in E.Coli and yeast vectors for use by the broader research community. Previously, she has worked to construct the genome libraries at Integrated Genomics Inc. She has also constructed recombinant Adenovirus vectors at several laboratories including: Dr. Primal de Lanerolle's lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Dr. Hazel Lum's lab at the Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center and Dr. Jeffrey M. Leiden's lab at the University of Chicago.

Renhua Huang, Ph.D Student
renhuahuang@yahoo.com

.....Renhua studied biochemistry and molecular genetics during his undergraduate years in Guangxi University, China. Then he went to Loyola University Chicago to study developmental neurobiology as a M.S. student. He is interested in how molecules interact and how principles of physics and chemistry can be applied to this interaction to elucidate the complexity of cellular signaling networks. Currently he is working to build molecular biosensors that monitor the activation of protein kinases in living cells.

Nanthanit Jaruseranee, Ph.D Student
mnanth@hotmail.com

.....Nanthanit, better known as “M”, is a Ph.D student in the biotechnology program at Suranaree University of Technology in Thailand. She has received a scholarship from the Development and Promotion of Science and Technology Talent Project which is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology. This scholarship gave her the opportunity to come to UIC and work in the Kay lab for a year. She joined the lab on July 2008. She is studying the role of various molecules on the surface of bile duct cancer cells using phage display technology.

Michael Kierny, Ph.D Student
mkiern2@uic.edu

.....Mike graduated from Iowa State University in 2006 with a B.A. in Biology and came to UIC in the fall of 2007 to start a PhD program in the Laboratory for Molecular Biology. As an undergraduate he conducted research in the lab of Dr. Marit Nilsen-Hamilton where he worked to characterize a Bovine acute phase protein called Uterocalin. He also was an employee of the Department of Energy’s Ames Research Laboratory where he worked on the sub-cloning of malachite green DNA Aptamers. After graduation, he stayed in Ames and worked for the laboratory-affiliated biotech company, where he set-up assays to detect Uterocalin in Bovine milk.

Adnan Memic, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Associate
memic@uic.edu

..... Adnan started his graduate work at University of Sarajevo, School of Pharmacy before transferring to St. Mary’s College in Michigan where he graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Chemistry and minor in Biology. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry with emphasis in biochemistry from Wayne State University in Detroit, in the lab of Mark Spaller (currently at Dartmouth). His thesis focused on bioactive molecule discovery, including the design and development of chemical and peptide analog libraries and their application to biochemical and biological problems. Adnan is currently a postdoctoral research associate working on generating novel affinity reagents by means of phage display libraries to be used for construction of neuromodulating nanopartricle platforms (NNPs). These NNPs are meant to interact with ion channels in the retina of the eye, with the goal of modulating channel activity in order to rescue their function, therefore allowing the recovery of vision in individuals affected by macular degeneration. His work is funded by NIH and the National Eye Institute.

John Pavlovic
Visiting Research Specialist
pavlovic@uic.edu

..... John completed his B.S. at the University of Missouri-Columbia and his M.S. at Drexel University in Biomedical Engineering. He spent some time working in the biotechnology industry before joining Dr. Kay's lab in the winter of 2007, where he utilizes phage display as a medium for his research. Among other things, one of John's research focuses is the interaction between antibodies and a mutated form of the protein called superoxide dismutase-1 (MTSOD1). MTSOD1 is toxic to motor neurons and research indicates MTSOD1 aggregation may be the cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's Disease. Another of John's projects is to discover an antibody that binds to RhoA, which is a GTPase involved in tumorigenesis. John was a Visiting Researcher for three months at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, England), where he investigated protein-protein interactions using phage display technology.

Kritika Pershad, Ph.D. student
kpersh2@uic.edu

..... Kritika got her Masters in Biochemistry from Osmania University, India. She worked for six months in Dr. Usha Rani's lab at Indian Institute of Chemical technology, on "Plant allelochemicals as botanical pesticides". After her Masters Kritika worked for a year as a research associate in the chemistry division at Hindustan Lever Research center. Her research focused on sunscreen stabilization in formulations. She joined the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology program in fall 2006.

Natasha Saiyed, Undergraduate student
nsaiyed2@uic.edu

..... Natasha is a premed student completing her BS in Biological Sciences. She will be attending medical school at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Fall of 2009. As an undergraduate in the Kay Lab, she has been working on expressing and purifying various antibodies into E. coli. Aside from her heavy class load, when she is not bickering with Alex in the lab, Natasha is also a contributing writer for Current magazine.

Jack Shen, Undergraduate Student
jshen6@uic.edu

..... Jack is an undergraduate in Biological Sciences and intends to go to medical school after graduation. He is working to subclone the anti-His scFv into an alkaline phosphatase fusion vector for general lab use in Western blots and ELISAs. He is also generating a soluble form of the vector to pull down polyHis-tagged proteins.

Alex Smetana, Undergraduate student
asmeta2@uic.edu

..... Alex is completing his B.S. in neuroscience at the University of Illinois at Chicago. After graduation, he will attend the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. As an undergraduate in the Kay Lab, he works on cloning affinity reagents for zebrafish proteins into alkaline phosphatase fusions. He also runs Enzyme-Linked Binding Assays and Western blots to verify the specificity and affinity to their respective zebrafish target proteins. When he is not incessantly chatting in lab, Alex can be found on his bike training because he thinks he looks good in spandex.

Daniel Staren, Undergraduate Student
dstare2@uic.edu

..... Daniel is a forth year undergraduate student completing a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Biological Sciences. Prior to joining the Kay lab, Daniel did clinical research at the Medical University of Ohio Cancer Institute and at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Following graduation, he plans on continuing his graduate studies in Biological Sciences. Daniel recently started at the Kay lab and is looking forward to beginning his research.

Sang Thai
Visiting Research Specialist & Lab Manager
sang@uic.edu

..... Sang graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2003 with a double major in Biological Sciences and Psychology, with a minor in Chemistry. She has returned to academia after spending a few years working in the biotech industry. After graduation, Sang joined Molecular Diagnostics, Inc. working on an assay intended for detection of cervical precancerous and cancerous cells using fluorescent biomarkers. Just before joining the Kay lab in December 2006, she worked at Nanosphere, Inc, a nanotechnology-based company. Sang worked in assay development using gold nanoparticle probes to detect single nucleotide polymorphisms to identify individuals at risk of having or inheriting thrombophilia and took the assay all the way to clinical trials. Because she has become an aunt rather recently, she spends all her free time taking pictures, videotaping, and swooning over her adorable nephews.

Veronica Volgina, Ph.D.
Visting Research Professor
vvolgin2002@yahoo.com

..... Veronica graduated from Russian State Medical University (Moscow, Russia) and completed her Ph.D. at Institute of BioMedical Chemistry (Moscow, Russia). For her dissertation she studied DNA-enzymes and hybridoma technology and had obtained multiple novel monoclonal antibodies. She was a leader of Hybridoma technology group at Moscow Center for Medical Genetics in Russia. Veronica continued her research in USA studying immunoglobulin genes and B cell development in Dr. K. Knight’s lab (Loyola University Chicago) and in Dr. U. Storb’s lab (University of Chicago). Main focus of her research is B-cell immunology, immunoglobulin genes and antibody technology. She joined the lab to pursue her interest in phage display and antibody engineering.

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