Tag: grad students

Pursuing a Ph.D. wasn’t always the plan for biochemistry alum Sydney Clark ’25, who is currently a first year Ph.D. student in the Healthcare Genetics and Genomics Laboratory under the School of Nursing at Clemson University.

“Although I had strong grades, I didn’t imagine I would be accepted into a PhD program right out of undergrad. I was told I needed to have a very clear trajectory for why I wanted to pursue graduate school and where I wanted to end up after I received a graduate degree. While I still do not have a perfectly defined path for my future, I know this was the best next step I could have taken.”

Originally from Charleston, SC, Sydney came to Clemson for undergraduate studies, graduating in May 2025 with a degree in biochemistry with minors in microbiology and biological sciences. Sydney first joined the Healthcare Genetics and Genomics Lab during her junior year and later applied to continue the Ph.D. research with the help of her mentor, Dr. Aubrey Mattingly.

“I am now working as a Graduate TA/RA for the HCG Lab, where I help train undergrad students in various aspects of cancer research.”

Sydney’s dissertation work focuses on the use of natural pharmaceutical extracts to treat breast cancer in a zebrafish model organism. Specifically, she studies how these herbal extracts influence the regulation of key anti-cancer genes involved in apoptosis, proliferation, migration, and other processes.

“This program has already allowed me to gain hands-on experience with a wide range of laboratory techniques, including culturing, fluorescent tagging, metabolomics, embryo microinjections and fluorescent microscopy, among others. More importantly, it has given me the freedom to explore, experiment and teach others the “why” behind what we do in research.”

When graduating Ph.D. student Sabrina Pizzaro was an undergraduate biology major at North Greenville University, she participated in the Biology National Science Foundation – Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) here at Clemson working with G&B’s Dr. Hong Luo. Though Luo’s specialty – plants – might not have sparked Sabrina’s interest, Clemson, the department and the Eukaryotic Pathogens Innovations Center (EPIC) did!

“It was a great experience! I loved the environment of the campus and knew I wanted to come back. I knew I was interested in some of the EPIC labs, so I got to meet with a handful of professors I was interested in working with, including Dr. Jim Morris. There was research that interested me, and I would be within an hour of both mine and my husband’s families; it seemed like a perfect fit!”

Sabrina arrived on campus in Fall 2019 and began courses, research and TA work.

“I taught in the teaching labs for three years! Getting to interact with our undergraduate students was truly an honor; we have amazing students in our program.”

Sabrina’s Ph.D. research in EPIC focuses on Trypanosome brucei, the parasite that causes African Sleeping Sickness. In these parasites, glycolysis occurs within specialized peroxisomes, called glycosomes, rather than in the cytosol, and the bloodstream form of the parasite is completely reliant on glycolysis for ATP production.

“Our lab focuses on how to target the glycolytic pathway. I’ve worked on two main projects; one where I have studied using peroxisomal targeting sequences to traffic drugs into the glycosome where they can inhibit glycolytic enzymes and the other where I studied two putative proton transporters involved in regulating the pH of the glycosome.”

Something other than coursework and research that has been a prevalent part of Sabrina’s time at Clemson is the Genetics and Biochemistry Graduate Student Association (GBGSA).

“For the past few years, I’ve served on the leadership team for the GBGSA. The main goal of GBGSA is to foster community within our graduate student body, and that goal really resonates with me. I think that community is incredibly important in every aspect of life, and grad school is far from an exception to that rule.”

When not on campus, Sabrina loves to bake sourdough, watch Clemson Women’s gymnastics, rock climb, lead worship at church, grow carnivorous plants, crochet amigurumi and design nail art.

On October 22nd, Sabrina presented her Ph.D. defense titled Exploring Glycosomes as Therapeutic Targets for Trypanosome brucei and will graduate this December.

Dr. Rajan Sekhon, Manwinder Brar and Barath Kunduru, recent Ph.D. graduates from the Sekhon lab, published a Plant Cell study identifying metabolites and genes controlling maize leaf senescence titled, “Temporal analysis of physiological phenotypes identifies metabolic and genetic underpinnings of senescence in maize.” 

Manwinder Brar was first author on a collaborative study with USDA scientists with an article titled “Untargeted metabolomics reveals key metabolites and genes underlying salinity tolerance mechanisms in maize” in Plant Genome.

Dr. Jennifer Mason and post doctoral fellow Josh Turner published “FBH1 and the replication stress response: Implications for genome stability and cancer” in DNA Repair.

Drs. Trudy Mackay and Robert Anholt published three articles together

• “A Drosophila model for mucopolysaccharidosis IIIB” in Genetics
• “Arsenic toxicity in the Drosophila brain at single cell resolution” in Front Toxicoln (where post doctoral fellow Anurag Chaturvedi is first author)
• “Effects of aging on gene expression networks in the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel” in Cell Reports

“Ultrastructural expansion microscopy reveals unexpected levels of glycosome heterogeneity in African trypanosomes” by Drs. Heidi Anderson and Meredith Morris has been accepted in the Journal of Microscopy.

Dr. Andrew Jezewski’s paper “Discovery and mechanism of a highly selective, antifungal acetyl CoA synthetase inhibitor” was accepted into Nature Communications.

Dr. Fabio Morgante had three publications:

• ““Comparing statistical learning methods for complex trait prediction from gene expression” in PLoS ONE
• “Improving polygenic prediction from summary data by learning patterns of effect sharing across multiple phenotypes” in PLoS Genetics
• “Improvement of polygenic modeling of blood pressure traits using lifestyle information in the UK Biobank” in GENETICS

“Non-coding RNAs in plant stress responses: molecular insights and agricultural applications” was published in Plant Biotechnology Journal. Graduate student Xiaotong Chen is the first author, Dr. Hong Luo and two of his other students, Zhaohui Chen and Ryan Watts are co-authors of this article.

Dr. Robert Anholt was asked by Chem Senses to write the obituary for well-renowned artist and scientist Bert Menco when he passed earlier this summer after the pair had worked together for years.

Dr. Hong Luo was invited to give four talks:

• At the Louvain Institute of Biomolecular Science and Technology at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
• In the session “Biotechnology approaches for animal and crop improvement and environmental risk assessment of genetically engineered organisms” of the Society For In Vitro Biology 2025 Meeting in Norfolk, VA.
• At Lanzhou University as a part of their seminar series.
• At the International Pastureland and Forage Industry Congress 2025 in Hulunbuir, China.

Dr. Stephen Dolan and Ph.D. students Jessica Aycock, Shafi Mondal and Lindsay Pauls attended the Gordon Research Seminar & Conference on Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction in Newport, RI, where all three gave research presentations.

Zane Tolbet, a Ph.D. candidate, gave an oral presentation at the Midwest DNA Repair Symposium at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Fabio Morgante was invited to speak at the CM Statistics 2024 conference in London and at Clemson University for the Medical Biophysics Seminar Series. The titles of his talks were “A variational empirical Bayes approach to multivariate multiple regression, with applications to polygenic prediction” and “Exploiting Complexity to Improve Phenotype Prediction,” respectively.

Post doctoral fellow Anurag Chaturvedi gave an oral presentation, titled “Unravelling toxicogenomics: From single cell to populations” as part of a workshop at the Drosophila Research Conference in San Diego.  

Dr. Robert Anholt presented a workshop presentation skills and was a panel member of a grant review writing session at the 2025 SC INBRE Career Development Workshop at the USC School of Medicine in Columbia, SC. He also served on the NIH Special Emphasis Panel/Scientific Review Group for Program Projects: Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) Phase 1.

Dr. James Morris received the grant “Optimization of delivery of HEX for treatment of primary amebic encephalitis” from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences/NIH.

Dr. Rajan Sekhon received a $2.4M NSF grant, titled “BIO-AI: RESEARCH-PGR: Harnessing Multi-Omics and AI/ML to Unveil Nutrient Recycling Mechanisms in Maize Senescence,” a collaboration between Clemson University (lead), Cornell University, and the University of Florida. The project uses systems genetics and AI/ML to identify key mechanisms of maize leaf senescence and nutrient remobilization, guiding improvements in nitrogen use efficiency, grain quality, and crop resilience.

Graduate students Xiaotong Chen and Zhaohui Chen were awarded travel grants to attend 2025 Society for In Vitro Biology Meeting held in Norfolk, VA in June.

Dr. Andrew Jezewski was awarded a South Carolina Department of Agriculture – Agribusiness Center for Research and Entrepreneurship (SCDA-ACRE) grant to study “Biocontrol of Salmonella using nutritional yeasts.”

Post doctoral fellow Anurag Chaturvedi received a $25,000 grant from the Clemson University Research Foundation to develop high-throughput screening of drugs using Drosophila.

Ph.D. student with Dr. Jennifer Mason, Zane Tolbert, was awarded second place for his poster presentation titled, “Nascent strand degradation and genomic instability in FANCD2 and FANCA deficient cells requires RAD54L-mediated fork reversal” at the Inaugural Symposium on Genome Integrity and Chromatin Regulation at UNC-Charlotte.

Dr. Michael Sehorn received the Clemson University National Scholars Program Award of Distinction.

Biochemistry alum Adam Gatch ’25 has received a Fulbright research award to study abroad in Munich, Germany at Ludwig Maximilian University. Adam has respectfully declined the Germany Fulbright offer after earning a Churchill scholarship earlier in the spring.

Drs. Heidi Anderson, Michael Harris and Todd Lyda have been promoted to senior lecturer.

Ph.D. student under Dr. Stephen Dolan, Jessica Aycock was honored with the Cell Press Best Poster Award at the Gordon Research Seminar & Conference on Microbial Adhesion and Signal Transduction in Newport, RI.

Dr. James Morris was quoted in the Washington post article “Brain-eating amoebas are rare. But hot weather increases the risk” regarding his expertise in the brain-eating amoebas Naegleria fowleri.

Graduate student Xiaotong Chen was awarded the first prize for poster presentation competition in the 2025 Society for In Vitro Biology Meeting.

Dr. Robert Anholt joined the Advisory Board of the Blackland Charity Initiative, Ghana.

Graduate student Bibhu Simkhada attended the summer course on Neurobiology of Drosophila at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. He also won second place in the Clemson iGRADS video competition and the people’s choice award for his video on Sanfilippo disease.

Dr. Kim Paul recently celebrated 20 years with Clemson Univeristy.

Naegleria fowleri is a rare and complex infection that is severely underresearched. After a case was confirmed in the state, the news outlet WYFF reached out to Clemson University’s Eukaryotic Pathogen’s Innovation Center and its post doctoral fellow Dr. Jillian MeKon, who focuses on these organisms.

Located at Clemson’s Center for Human Genetics in Greenwood, SC, graduate student Kathryn Howe recently completed her first year of Ph.D. research under assistant professor Dr. Tara Doucet-O’Hare.

“When I was taking classes in high school, I fell in love with chemistry and biology and really enjoyed learning about cancers and genetics.”

It was this love for science that led Kathryn to pursuing her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and molecular biology at Mercer University in GA.

“While I was there, I was an active member of the marching band and served as band captain for two years. I love the classes and the chance to get involved in research early in my education.”

Kathryn’s primary research at Mercer was focused on bacteria and trying to design and test small molecules that would inhibit the production of biofilm without killing the bacteria.

“I also got to spend some time in Peru measuring the amount of mercury in the air around small-town gold shops and working with the engineering department to design and install mercury capture systems. It was through these projects and many others at Mercer that made my love for research really began to grow.”

After graduating, Kathryn took a position as a research technician at Johns Hopkins in the Gastroenterology Lab, gaining insight into academic labs, Ph.D. programs, clinical trial research and the versatility of the mouse model, which inspired her to pursue our Ph.D. program in genetics.

“I am currently working on transposable elements and their role in cancers, neurodevelopment and therapeutics. We use the chicken embryo model for a lot of our developmental work and the eggs come from right here at Clemson Poultry farm.”

Kathryn is a member of the Genetics and Biochemistry Graduate Student Association, where she plans to schedule social events for the Greenwood campus and encourage cross-campus interaction between the grad students.

“I chose Clemson for my Ph.D. because of the resources they had for their students, the involvement of the students in each step of their thesis project and the supportive and friendly faculty and staff in the G&B department.”

After obtaining her Ph.D. Kathryn hopes to stay on the research side of things, continuing to work in a research lab setting, specifically cancer and genetics.

Naegleria fowleri is a rare and complex infection that is severely underresearched. The news outlet WYFF reached out to Clemson University’s Eukaryotic Pathogen’s Innovation Center (EPIC) and its post doctoral fellow Dr. Jillian MeKon, who are focused on these organisms.

The week of July 7th the South Carolina Department of Public Health confirmed a case of Naegleria fowleri, also known as the brain-eating amoeba, in the state. On Tuesday, July 23rd, the patient succumbed to their illness.

“Naegleria is incredibly rare. So there are not that many people that work on it,” Jillian said. “It’s incredibly important, and something that I don’t want to ever be forgotten about.”

The group is actively conducting studies within the Jim Morris lab on campus to develop drugs for patients in hopes of lessening the severity of the disease and extending life. The Morris’ lab in EPIC used the enzyme HEX to further Naegleria fowleri research. The group said it led to hope for possible groundbreaking treatment.

“We are working very hard in finding a better treatment, because it is absolutely necessary. We need to work on the root of administration. So, figuring out exactly how to deliver that drug to the patient,” Jillian said.

Margo Courtney’s ’21 experience in research labs and creative inquires (CI) during her undergraduate experience at Clemson prepared her for her career at Ionis Pharmaceuticals in San Diego, CA.

“My time in research labs and my CI prepared me well to feel comfortable in the [Ionis Pharmaceuticals] lab and the background in genetics and biochemistry has made it very easy to understand the concepts of our therapies and the diseases we work to treat.”

Margo was a genetics and biochemistry double major with a minor in life sciences and worked at the Academic Success Center as a peer tutor for general and organic chemistry.

“Orgo was probably my favorite class of all of college!”

Margo was member of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and held an executive position as the academic achievement chair. She also worked in Dr. Will Richardson’s lab for a CI in the biomedical engineering department.

“We developed in vitro tissue culture platforms to create technologies to control fibrosis related to heart failure.”

After graduating in May of 2021, Margo moved to San Diego to work for as a Research Associate II at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, a company that focuses on developing RNA-targeted therapies, specifically Antisense Oligonucleotides for a variety of diseases.

“It’s been a great experience, and I can see the ocean from my lab which is pretty fun! They really helped develop my skills both professionally and in the lab. I often times am asked to present my research, help with publications and attend conferences so it has the feel of academia even though I’m working in industry.”

Margo works for the Genome Integrity Group, where they mainly focus on age-related diseases and neurodegenerative conditions. Margo’s main concern is working to identify a target and relevant treatment of Huntington’s Disease (HD).

“I make in vitro neuronal models for the disease starting with iPSCs, then differentiating them into neurons or organoids, and finally try to model the repeat instability of the repeat in HD in these cell models with the hope of reversing somatic instability with our various therapies.”

The day-to-day at work changes depending on the specific project she is working on or protocols, but it mainly entails working in the lab doing cell culture, treatment and downstream analysis of Next-Generation Sequencing or qPCR.

“I knew I enjoyed the lab and wanted to spend some time in industry out of school to figure out what specific type of genetic research and science related path I wanted to go down.”

Margo’s time in industry motivated her academically to obtain her Ph.D. Last year she started back in school at Clemson in the Healthcare Genetics and Genomics (HGG) Program. Going back to school and getting a higher degree will open doors to careers that truly interest her. Margo hopes in the future to stay in industry but lean more into the translational science that is highlighted in the HGG program.

“Becoming a medical science liaison would be great to bridge the gap between my knowledge of genetic research and clinical practice as I have always loved discussing, teaching and communicating scientific concepts and ideas to make it more accessible and impactful for others hopefully in the neurodegenerative or aging field.”

When Colm Roster was studying molecular genetics at the State University of New York at Fredonia (SUNY Fred), he spent a summer working with Dr. Jim Morris as part of a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. When he graduated from SUNY Fred, he chose to move to Clemson and pursue our Ph.D. program in biochemistry and molecular biology (BCHMMB) with Dr. Morris.

“I appreciated not only how talented of a scientist Dr. Morris is, but also how passionate he is about his work and how dedicated he is to cultivating a familial lab environment. I chose to pursue the BCHMMB program because enzyme structure, kinetics and regulation have always been a captivating research field to me.”

As a smaller university, SUNY Fred allowed Colm to grow close to his classmates and build a community. Undergrad research is where Colm found his love for the field and made him feel like he was the first person in the world who actually knew something, which lit a fire in him.

“SUNY Fred also allowed for me to connect strongly with the faculty there and get involved in research. This allowed me to learn from people whose passion was teaching which no doubt shaped how passionate I am about my work and how I think about science. I hope to pursue a career in parasitology research because I like how weird the biology of these organisms is.”

Currently, Colm is working towards his Ph.D. in the Morris lab, focusing on understanding an extrachromosomal DNA element in the brain-eating amoeba.

“We are trying to identify the DNA sequences that serve as an origin of replication and promoters to drive gene expression. I also do a lot of our recombinant protein work and enzyme kinetics as well as some drug screening.”

Outside of the lab, Colm is grateful for the people he’s met and interacted with at the university, specifically with our weekly seminar series. Every Friday during the regular semester, the department brings in a distinguished member of the scientific community to give a seminar specifically for the graduate students.

“I get to meet and listen to talks on a wide variety of topics from people who are way smarter than I am. But further than that the students and faculty are very welcoming, kind and always open to giving advice.”

Colm is originally from Chincoteague, Virginia, “where they swim horses across the bay,” but spent most of his life Le Roy, NY – “the birthplace of Jell-O and stringless string beans.” However, he plans to one day live in a remote cabin in the woods.

In his free time Colm enjoys being active, especially on the Morris Lab outings, including hiking Table Rock “one too many times,” listening to live music and discovering small new artists, always seeming to prefer the openers at concerts. He describes himself as a massive film buff and loves science books.

“I’ll do pretty much anything if it means I get to learn.”