Jan M. Skotheim
Principal Investigator
Education : Ph.D. Applied Mathematics University of Cambridge 2004
Postdoctoral Research : Rockefeller University w/F. Cross & E.D. Siggia
Email : skotheim
Interests : Jan is interested in all aspects of cell cycle control and the search for biological regulatory principles. Two key questions facing the laboratory are how and why do cells control their own size?
Jacob Kim
Graduate student, Chemical and Systems Biology, September 2018-
Education: Williams College, B.A. Biology w/ conc. in Biochem/Mol Bio
Email: jmhkim
Interests: control and coordination of cell cycle and cell size
Dong Shin (Chris) You
Graduate Student, July 2020-
Swarthmore College, BA Biology & Political Science
Interests: Regulation of biosynthesis with cell size
Email: cdsyou
Alice Lam
Graduate Student Biophysics August 2024-
MIT, BS Biological Engineering & Electrical Engineering
Interests: How do mechanical properties of the cell scale with size?
Shuyuan Zhang
Position: Postdoctoral researcher 2018-
Education: Ph.D. UT Southwestern Medical Center, Liver ploidy and liver cancer
Interest: Cell cycle and cell size regulation in mammalian live
Email: zhangsy
Jordan Xiao
Ph.D. student, June 2020-
BA Berkeley Physics
Email: jyxiao
Interests: Systems/mechanisms that coordinate size sensing and the cell cycle
Julius Palme
Postdoctoral Scholar September 2024-
BS Technical University of Munich, MS Technical University of Munich, PhD Harvard University
Interests: How do cells sense and regulate their growth rate?
Julie Nielsen
Postdoctoral Researcher 2024-
BSc and MSc, Molecular Biomedicine University of Copenhagen. PhD, The Francis Crick Institute.
Interests: cell cycle regulation and cellular senescence.
Mike Lanz
Position: Postdoctoral researcher 2019-
Education: PhD - Cornell University, BS - Penn State
Email: mikelanz
Interests: How do cells know how big they are?
Lucas Fuentes Valenzuela
PhD student Electrical Engineering 2022-
Education: MS U. Liege Engineering Physics
Interests: Deciphering the molecular basis of cellular dynamics, from models and experiments
Ning Lu
Position: Postdoctoral researcher 2023-
Education: Ph.D. Microbiology, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences
Interest: How does genome size affect cell size and cell growth?
Email: luning1
Cecelia Brown
Graduate student, Biology, June 2019-
Education: B.S. Biology, San Jose State University
Email: ceceliaf
Interests: Understanding how a cell commits to division and the molecular mechanisms involved in that decision.
Shicong (Mimi) Xie
Postdoctoral researcher August 2016-
MIT, Ph.D., Computational Systems Biology
Email: xies
Interests: The cell cycle in vivo
Xin Gao
Postdoctoral researcher October 2023-
Ph.D., Peking University, Physics
Email: gaox
Interests: Cellular growth dynamics
Alumni
Postdocs
Andreas Doncic, Assistant Prof. of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern (deceased 2018)
Jennifer Ewald, Prof. University of Tübingen
Kurt Schmoller, Group leader (PI) Helmholtz Institute, Munich
Ali Shariati, Assistant Professor of Biomelecular Engineering at UCSC
David Jukam, biotech
Mardo Koivomagi, Stadtman Investigator (PI) NIH
Matthew Swaffer, Wellcome Trust Fellow (PI) and group leader at the Wellcome Centre for Cell Biology at The University of Edinburgh
Evgeny Zatulovskiy, MRC Career Development Fellow, and Group leader at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge
Graduate Students
Umut Eser, Ph.D. Applied Physics, 2013 Thesis : Spatio-temporal regulation of cell cycle transcription.
Subsequent position : Postdoc with Stirling Churchman at Harvard Medical School now Director of Data Science at Cellarity
Amy Johnson, Ph.D. Biology, 2014 Thesis : Onset of Cdk2 activity determines passage through the restriction point in primary cells.
Subsequent position : Biotech industry, scientist at Regeneron.
Amanda Amodeo, Ph.D. Biology, 2014 co-mentor Aaron Straight Thesis : Histone titration by DNA sets the threshold for the mid-blastula transition in Xenopus Subsequent position : Lewis-Sigler Fellow (PI) Princeton University
Oguzhan Atay, Ph.D. Biology, 2016, Thesis: Not Isolated, But Still Insulated: Switch-like Transitions Modularize Biological Networks.
Subsequent position: founder of Billiontoone Biotech company
Clayton Schwarz, Ph.D. Biology, 2018, Thesis: A precise Cdk activity threshold determines passage through the restriction point. Subsequent position: postdoc with Prof. Eric Siggia, The Rockefeller University.
Jon Turner, Ph.D. Biology, 2018, Thesis: Distinct mechanisms of multisite phosphorylation of the transcriptional inhibitor Whi5 regulate the budding yeast cell cycle. Subsequent position: biotech scientist with enEvolve
Devon Chandler-Brown, Ph.D. Biology, 2019, Thesis: Regulation of Cell Size and the Size Dependence of Gene Expression. Subsequent position: biotech scientist with Billiontoone Inc.
Daniel Berensen, MD/Ph.D.Biology, 2019, Thesis: Measurement and maintenance of human cell size. Subsequent position: Medical student.
Ben Reyes Topacio, Ph.D. Biology, 2020, Thesis: The mechanism of helix-based docking between Cyclin D-Cdk4,6 and the retinoblastoma protein. Subsequent position: Postdoc and lecturer UCSC.
Lucas Fuentes Valenzuela, Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, 2024, Thesis work in our group: On the orgin of the product law for epistasis in cell growth.
Crystal Tsui, MS Bioengineering, 2024
Undergraduates and Technicians
Chris Aakre 2009, *Phil Shiu 2010, Avi Robinson-Mosher 2010, *Elena Kassianidou 2011, *Taryn Sumabat 2011, *Thienan Nguyen 2011, Elliot Lui 2012, Melody Falleur-Fettig 2012, Hnin Ookhin 2012, XiaoSong Mu 2012, Ryoko Hamaguchi 2012, Devon King 2012, *Franklin Caval-Holme 2013, Preethi Pallegar 2015, Anthony Ma 2015, Claire Robinson 2016, Carolyn Kravitz 2017, Sylvia Choo 2017, *Ryan Hseih 2019, Ingrid Vallee 2019, David Godinez 2020, *Rishabh Kapoor 2021, Christian Wright 2021, Ilayda Ilerten 2022, Luisa Gotz 2022, Julia Vu 2022, Aliya Fisher 2023, Masaru Shimasawa 2023, Christian Gutierrez 2024, Josh Konschnik 2024, Blair Schooling 2024
*denotes completed senior honors thesis