Our Team
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Eric Fischer
Principal Investigator Longwood Center, LC-2209 Email: eric_fischer (at) dfci.harvard.edu |
Senior Staff
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Katherine Donovan
Lead Scientist / Managing Director, Fischer Labs Longwood Center, LC-3118 Email: kdonovan (at) crystal.harvard.edu Katherine received her PhD in protein biochemistry in the lab of Prof. Renwick Dobson at the University of Canterbury, NZ. Her research interests are focused on exploring E3 ligase mechanism and methods of manipulation for targeted protein degradation. She set up and optimized a high throughput chemo-proteomics pipeline for the identification of degradation targets in the Fischer Lab as well as in the Center for Protein Degradation. Katherine continues to work on several projects related to ligase biology and protein degradation while also overseeing the degradation proteomics operation and the lab operations. |
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Yuan Xiong
Senior Scientist Longwood Center, LC-2111B Email: yuan_xiong (at) dfci.harvard.edu Yuan received her B.S. in Chemistry from Tsinghua University and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Boston University. She then joined the lab of Prof. Nathanael Gray at Dana Farber Cancer Institute as a postdoctoral fellow and worked on targeting KRas and other targets with small molecule inhibitors and degraders. Her research interests include developing small molecule degraders as chemical probes for studying biology questions and as potential therapeutics. |
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Hong Yue
Scientist I Longwood Center, LC-2110G Email: hyue (at) crystal.harvard.edu Hong received her PhD in Organic Chemistry at Peking University, where she focused on the discovery of agonist and antagonist small molecules to regulate the Wnt pathway. Hong joined Dr. Marc Vidal's group at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as a postdoc where she was investigating the fragment-fragment interaction network for yeast HDAC complex and developed robust systematical and HTS platform for functional genetics studies through the integration of NGS technology. |
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Shourya Sonkar Roy Burman
Scientist I Longwood Center, LC-3120A Email: ssroyburman (at) crystal.harvard.edu Shourya obtained his bachelor's degree in Bioengineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur followed by a Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. During his Ph.D. in Prof. Jeffrey Gray's group, he developed computational methods to dock flexible proteins and symmetric proteins in the Rosetta modeling suite. |
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Elsa Chen
Lab Manager Longwood Center, LC-2100G Email: echen (at) crystal.harvard.edu |
Postdoctoral Fellows
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Franziska Wachter
Postdoc Longwood Center, LC-2110J Email: Franziska_Wachter (at) DFCI.HARVARD.EDU Franziska is currently an Instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and an Attending-Physician in the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant Division at DFCI | BCH. Franziska focuses on novel therapeutic approaches for difficult to treat myeloid malignancies. Her graduate studies in Irmela Jeremia’s laboratory (LMU/Helmholtz Center Munich, Germany) focused on mechanisms of chemoresistance and apoptosis signaling. Her postdoctoral training in Loren Walensky's laboratory at DFCI was dedicated to BCL-2 family protein biology. She identified and characterized BAX activators discovered in a NMR-based fragment screen and studied new inhibitory mechanism of the apoptotic effector protein BAX. She also validated the on-target mechanism of a p53 reactivating stapled peptide drug that is currently in clinical trials. Franziska received an M.D. from Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Germany, completed residency training in Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital | Boston Medical Center and Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplant Fellowship at DFCI | Boston Children’s Hospital. Franziska utilizes her unique training in medicine, biochemistry, and structural biology to work at the innovative forefront of pediatric oncology and drug development |
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Meng Wang
Postdoc Longwood Center, LC-2111E Email: meng_wang1 (at) dfci.harvard.edu Meng received her PhD in Organic Chemistry from Fudan University. She worked on stereoselective construction of multi-substituted cyclobutane derivatives via functionalization of highly-strained carbocycles. She joined Fischer lab in October 2022. Her research interests include developing small-molecule kinase inhibitors and degraders. |
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Panos Karagiannis
Postdoc Longwood Center, LC-2110J Email: pkaragiannis (at) crystal.harvard.edu Panos is a consultant in medical oncology and hematology and is holds a PhD from King’s College London in immunology. His research during his PhD included understanding and modulating the adaptive immune response. He discovered a IgG4-mediated tumor evasion mechanism in melanoma and design severely tools to identify tumor antigen specific antibodies which are currently being tested in preclinical applications. During his residency in Oncology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf Panos' research focus was on B cell in solid cancers and the immune modulation in the tumor microenvironment where he supported his fellow lab colleague in several translation projects. Panos joined the Fischer Lab to deepen his knowledge of target degradation and protein design and to explore the identification of novel mechanisms to modulate the immune system in the tumor microenvironment. |
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Khee Baek
Postdoc Longwood Center, LC-21101C Email: kbaek (at) crystal.harvard.edu Khee received his Dr. rer. nat (PhD) in the lab of Dr. Brenda Schulman at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (and Technical University of Munich). His work focused on visualizing cullin-RING E3 ubiquitin ligases in action during ubiquitylation or those undergoing substrate receptor exchange. |
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Lobna Elsadek
Postdoc Longwood Center, LC-2111E Email: lelsadek (at) crystal.harvard.edu Lobna graduated from Phamacy School, Cairo University in Egypt. She received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Florida in the Luesch lab. Her research focused on harnessing the structural space dictated by the unique biosynthetic machinery of marine cyanobacteria to screen for new anticancer and antifungal agents. She coupled the identification of bioactive agents with comprehensive mechanistic studies to elucidate perturbed biological pathways and assign the therapeutically relevant biological targets. Lobna joined the Fischer lab with an interest in studying the interactome and the regulatory mechanisms governing the ubiquitin-proteasome system’s components. |
Graduate Students
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Cyrus Jin
BBS Graduate Student Longwood Center, LC-2111D Email: cyrusjin (at) g.harvard.edu Cyrus graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry. His research at UCLA was conducted under Professor Steven Clarke on regulation of arginine methyltransferases. |
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Katrina Warner
BBS Graduate Student Longwood Center, LC-2111D Email: kwarner (at) crystal.harvard.edu Katrina graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and Mathematics. Her undergraduate thesis, conducted in the lab of Prof. Dustin Maly, was focused on developing compound sensitive tools for studying cell signaling processes. Her undergraduate thesis, conducted under the supervision of Prof. Jarod Alper, was an exposition exploring MCMC-sampling algorithms in the context of algebraic geometry. Following graduation, Katrina spent time at Lyell Immunopharma, learning the intersection of protein design and CAR T-cell engineering. |
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Binita Shah
BBS Graduate Student Longwood Center, LC-2111C Email: binitashah (at) crystal.harvard.edu Binita graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University with a bachelor's degree in Cell and Molecular Biology. Her undergraduate thesis was conducted under Professor Joachim Frank investigating structural intermediates of bacterial translation using cryo-electron microscopy. She also spent a year at Schrödinger Inc. learning about the intersection of structural biology and drug discovery. |
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Jiho Park
BBS Graduate Student Longwood Center, LC-2110H Email: jpark (at) crystal.harvard.edu Jiho graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in Molecular and Cellular Biology. His previous research experiences focused on computational drug discovery and organic synthesis. He also spent two years working as a data scientist at nference before starting graduate school. |
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Sam Ojeda
CB Graduate Student Longwood Center, LC-2110C Email: sojeda (at) crystal.harvard.edu Sam graduated from New York University B.S in Chemistry and a minor in Genetic Biology. He then worked as a technician in Christopher Ott's lab at MGH. |
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Hilina Woldemichael
BBS Graduate Student Longwood Center, LC-2110H Email: hwoldemichael (at) crystal.harvard.edu Hilina graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in Molecular and Cellular Biology in 2021. Her undergraduate research was conducted in the lab of Professor Emily Balskus and focused on characterizing the metabolism of dietary micronutrients by gut bacteria. After graduation, she worked for two years as a Research Associate at the Broad Institute in the Proteomics Platform under Dr. Steve Carr. |
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Sean Gao
CB Graduate Student Longwood Center, LC-2110E Email: sean_gao (at) dfci.harvard.edu Sean graduated from Duke University with a B.S. in Chemistry and concentration in Chemical Biology. He conducted undergraduate research with Professor Katherine Franz, characterizing the thermodynamics of zinc binding to antimicrobial peptides using isothermal titration calorimetry. |
Technical Staff
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Jace De Castro
Research Technician Longwood Center, LC-2111E Email: ddecastro (at) crystal.harvard.edu |
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Hakyung Cheong
Research Technician Longwood Center, LC-2113 Email: hcheong (at) crystal.harvard.edu Hakyung (Joyce) received her Pharm.D in Seoul National University, majoring manufacturing pharmacy. Under the supervision of Prof. Youngro Byun, she conducted a study on screening protein expression in cancer cell derived exosomes for the purpose of developmenting a novel anti-tumor therapy. |
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Megha Lakshminarayan
Research Technician Longwood Center, LC-2113 Email: mlakshminarayan (at) crystal.harvard.edu |
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Joseph Tansino
Research Technician Longwood Center, LC-2113 Email: jtansino (at) crystal.harvard.edu Joe received his B.S. in Biology from Trinity College, Hartford in 2020. He has since held positions in environmental science, collecting data for fisheries management of the greater New England area. Also, in biotechnology aiding in the production of preclinical models. |
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Julia Ryan
Research Technician Longwood Center, LC-2113 Email: jryan (at) crystal.harvard.edu Julia graduated from Bowdoin College with an A.B. in Biology. She has previously worked in the lab of Professor Ruth Franklin studying the role of macrophages in response to respiratory viral infection, and in the lab of Professor Bill Jackman studying the regulation of enzymes involved in zebrafish tooth development. |
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Anna Rodriguez Pohnlein
Research Technician Longwood Center, LC-2113 Email: arodriquezpohnlein (at) crystal.harvard.edu |
Computational Staff
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Benyu Zhou
Associate Computational Biologist Longwood Center, LC-3120 Email: bzhou (at) crystal.harvard.edu Benyu received his BS in computational Biology at University of Rochester and MS in Bioinformatics at Boston University, where he also worked in Dr Xiaoling Zhang's lab on PolyA plus and minus sequencing data and circular RNA expression analysis related to AD. |
TPD Proteomics Core
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Rebecca Metivier
Scientist II / TPD Core Director Longwood Center, LC-2113E Email: rmetivier (at) crystal.harvard.edu Rebecca received her BS in Marine Biology from Roger Williams University and her MS in Chemical Biology from Boston College. After receiving her Masters, Rebecca worked as a Research associate in the proteomics group in the Center for Protein degradation where she focused on target identification using established methodology as well as leading the development of new workflows within the group. Rebecca joined the the TPD Proteomics Core as a Scientist in 2021 where she employs various chemoproteomics methods to study cellular responses to protein degraders and molecular glues. She also leads the development and optimization of new methods and technologies for the group. |
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Abby Thornhill
Research Technician Longwood Center, LC-2113D Email: athornhill (at) crystal.harvard.edu |
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Marion Abeja
Research Technician Longwood Center, LC-2113D Email: mabeja (at) crystal.harvard.edu |