Lin He, Ph.D.
glinhe@gmail.com

Lin received her doctoral degree at Stanford Medical School with Dr. Greg Barsh, before her postdoctoral training with Dr. Greg Hannon at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Lin Joined the Berkeley faculty in 2008 to explore the roles of microRNAs in the oncogenic and tumor suppressor pathways using mouse tumor models.

Amy Li, Ph.D.
meng.amy.li@berkeley.edu

Siebel Postdoctoral Fellowship (2011-2012)
Sir. Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship (2012-2016)

Amy was born and raised in northern China. When she was 18, Amy moved to Britain where she attended Imperial College London, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and acquiring a killer British accent! She went on to earn her PhD in the lab of Prof. Allan Bradley at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, where she worked on developing genomic technologies using mouse Embryonic Stem cells. Amy has fond memories of the rich culture in Cambridge juxtaposed with the extensive history of the University - which still conducts graduation entirely in Latin! She has since migrated to Berkeley and is investigating microRNA functions in the regulation of embryonic stem cell pluripotency.

Paul Lin, Ph.D.
newcplin@gmail.com

Siebel Postdoctoral Fellowship (2010-2011)
CIRM postdoctoral Fellowship (2012 - )

Coming soon...

Virginie Olive, Ph.D.
virginie.olive@berkeley.edu

CIRM Postdoctoral Fellowship (2011)

Virginie spent most of her graduate school years enjoying the beautiful beaches of south France while seeking a master regulator for spermatogenesis. After years of hard work with her favorite lab mice, she has a tendency to synchronize with their nocturnal schedule. As revenge for having her postdoctoral interview conducted around midnight with the much starved mentor, she has to attend 9am lab meetings these days, despite her multiple bribery attempts with delicious French cooking. Inside the lab, she is best known for applying her knowledge on cosmetics products to her imaging experiments.

Nobu Okada, Ph.D.
nobuokada@berkeley.edu

Hailing from the land of the rising sun, from Gunma, Japan, Nobuhiro Okada is the He Lab's equivalent of Hiro Nakamura from NBC's drama, Heroes. Always with a ready smile and laugh, Nobu is known for his superhuman abilities in the laboratory. While he may have received most of his technical training from Osaka University where he completed his PhD, his real training started when he came to the U.S. where he has picked up a love of some American favorites: rock music, burgers and the Oakland Athletics. While his kryptonite may be bicycle riding, it has not stopped Nobu from being a hero in lab working on characterization of miRNAs. Our sources hint that he gets his power from his amazing lunches, but to this day we may never be sure.

Margaux Bennett
margauxb@berkeley.edu

Tumor Biology Training Grant (2011 - )

Margaux grew up in the North Bay area, was an undergraduate at Stanford University, and made a perilous journey to Berkeley for graduate school. Despite her lazy eye and ridiculous orthodic shoes, Margaux is one of the most popular students of her year. Always in the know, you can count on Margaux for any experiments, or even more reliably, the latest tidbit of graduate school gossip. Among her numerous achievements in the lab is her 100% success rate when setting up high school friends with fellow lab members (n=1). Margaux has a passion for horseback riding and skiing, however, a new microRNA mouse model (name undisclosed) has provided stiff competition.

Yong Jin Choi
rotorua2001@gmail.com

Despite his teddy bear personality, YongJin served in the Army for two years before he graduated from Kyungpook National University. Fortunately, there are only a few remnants of his rigorous military training. One: his decisiveness when it comes to performing surgeries and his courage to explore the unknown. Two: his ferociousness when going after cake. Get in between YongJin and chocolate cake and you may risk cervical dislocation. Regardless, YongJin is simply one of the nicest people, always considerate and willing to help out. Continually with a smile on his face and cracking a good joke, YongJin's days of military rule are over--unless you count how strictly he obeys his boss. No, not Lin, we're talking about his wife.

Jennifer Cisson
jcisson@gmail.com

Jenn was born in Walnut Creek, CA and lived there until going off to college at UC San Diego. It was there that she obtained her Bachelors degree in Biochemistry as well as her Masters. Surprisingly, after spending eight years down by the beaches in sunny Southern California, Jenn has managed to go surfing only once! Rather, she spent her time working in David Traver's lab studying the ontogeny of hematopoietic stem cells in zebrafish. Now a graduate student here at UC Berkeley, Jenn has found her home in the He Lab, doing research on the dissemination of lymphoma. Despite the hard work she puts into lab and school, Jenn enjoys being outdoors and loves to sing. (Don't be surprised if you have seen her face before because she has sung at both Carnegie Hall and the Salzburg Music Festival!). Jenn's bright and cheerful personality can be seen not only through her beautiful smile but also in her Powerpoint presentations that are filled with knowledge, curiosity, and as Lin says, "too much color!!!"

Em Ho
emho@berkeley.edu

NSF Predoctoral Fellowship (2012 - )

Emily Elizabeth Ho is an avid Bostonian scholar, and equestrian. (She sports her "Kiss me I'm a Sox Fan" t-shirt on days when Nobu wears his Yankees jersey). She attended MIT at the sprightly age of 18, finishing in 3.5 years, just 35 short years after both her parents. With her P1's in science and Academia, this inbred F1 was genetically predisposed to become a nerdy scientist. When not fretting over the cleanliness of her bench or the perfectly labeled genotyping gels, Em enjoys riding her horse, Wills, playing with her 2 kitties, one of which has no teeth, baking, knitting, sewing, cleaning and crocheting (pronounced kraw-che-tting). She is essentially a "kraw-che-tty" little old lady trapped inside a 20-something's body, always in need of some herbal tea. Being inherently old, Em likes to recount with hyperbole her childhood memories, such as riding her pony, Milk Dud, at the age of 3 3/4 for the first time, where she may or may not have promptly fallen off of her, but of course she doesn't remember.

Erich Sabio
erichsabio@berkeley.edu

Too busy eating candy to write a bio

Nico Sponer
nicole.sponer@hotmail.de

To the tune of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:

In west Germany born and raised
In the laboratory is where I spent most of my days
Mini prep, midi prep, maxi all cool,
And travellin' all outside of the school
When a couple of girls who were up to no good
Started making hypotheses in my neighbourhood
I got one lil idea and my mom got scared
And I said "I'm going to U-C Berkeley, join me if you dare!"
                                                      I do RNA isolation and analysis day after day,
                                                      When I got the time I'll do some dicer assays,
                                                      Lin gave me a job and a Berkeley cop gave me a ticket,
                                                      I put my walkman on and said I might as well kick it.

Athena Ierokomos
aierokomos@berkeley.edu

Like her Greek goddess counterpart, Athena is a warrior when it comes to her academics and her life. Branching out from her home state New Jersey, Athena has journeyed to the UC Berkeley campus where, as a second year undergraduate, she is currently pursuing a possible double or triple major in areas of Math, Physics, and Biology. Athena reigns as the He Lab's designated "mouse weaner" but outside her job of working with mice, she is a master of the arts, either playing piano or dancing in her spare time. This seemingly invincible goddess however does have her weaknesses. Tempt her with a slice of Chili's chocolate molten lava cake and she'll devour it in no time with her unnaturally huge appetite for desserts.

Greg Lai
gregorymlai@yahoo.com

Coming soon

Jessica Ong
jess_ong@berkeley.edu

Jessica grew up in the Bay area 15 minutes from Berkeley on the Bart. Jessica studies Molecular and Cellular Biology here at UC Berkeley, and dreams to become a researcher in biomedical science. Although a second-year undergraduate, Jessica has been very keen to get her hands dirty in the lab already. Apart from her hectic schedules with her classes and experiments in the lab, Jessica always has a big heart for others. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her family and friends, playing the piano, going for a swim, or just enjoying the sun.

Amanda Perez
acperez@berkeley.edu

Amanda is a talented third year Molecular environmental Biology major at Berkeley. Not only is she pre-vet and working with the mice in the lab, but she clearly has a passion for animals since she recently acquired a maltese-shih-tzu mix puppy. Amanda occasionally runs to work in the morning, and is a frequent visitor at the RSF for the Bollywood dance class. All this activity ensures she is free to indulge in her guilty pleasures: chocolates, desserts, and the oh-so-delicious Olive Garden breadsticks.

Ben Zaghi
benjaminzaghi@gmail.com

Ben joined the lab as a senior to get one step closer to his unique dream of becoming a plastic surgeon and return to life in L.A.. His great skills in delivering food (never with pork as he is both Persian and Jewish…) and his never ending supply of chocolate has been very BENeficial for the lab. Such skills will serve him well for his future as a medical resident. "Benbot" is "dope" when it comes to RNA isolation and qPCR technical replicates, though don't walk behind him with a Geiger counter or his error bars will be bigger than ______ (fill in the blank! We have an answer but we can't write it). We only scare him with the beeping of the Geiger counter in hopes that he will get off the stool and show us some of his salsa moves. Despite our teasing, Ben is simply a chill guy who is awesome to hang out with in or outside the lab if you can pry him away from his Blackberry.

Yingchao Zhong
yingchaoz@gmail.com

Yingchao hails from the small southern California suburb of Irvine, but has also previously lived in China and Singapore. Besides academic pursuits, she enjoys music, art, and random trips. When she had a car back in so-cal, her mother complained of her lack of tendency to be home at predictable hours. But really, she's just always looking for something new and spontaneous.

Danielle Beeve
Pengcheng Bu, Ph.D.
Amy Chen
Isaiah Deresa
Mona Foth
Iris Jiang
Carl Ma
Marcelo Ribeiro
Jason Song
Brian Zude