Members

Dr. Joel Ybe

Principal Investigator

Joel received his Ph.D. at Rutgers University and was a postdoctoral fellow in the labs of Michael Hecht at Princeton University and Frances Brodsky at the University of California: San Francisco. Joel enjoys model trains as a hobby and has a highly detailed replica of the C&O raliroad line at home.

Dr. Sam Perez-Miller

Post-Doctoral Student

After obtaining a BS in physics from Central Washington University and her masters in physics from Lehigh University, Sam earned a PhD in Medical Biophysics from Indiana University where she worked on the structure and mechanism of mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase, a key enzyme in ethanol metabolism. Sam is using site-directed mutagenesis with kinetic and X-ray crystallographic studies with the hope of better understanding the role of clathrin light chain in clathrin polymerization and depolymerization.

Dave Coates

Graduate Student

Dave is a first year grad student who joined the lab officially in March of 2003. He is interested in crystallography, and in the structure/function of clathrin light chain. In addition he finds prions exceptionally interesting, as well as the biology of cancer. Dave went to Wabash College and got a B.A. in Biology in 1999. From `99 til grad school, he worked in pharmaceutical research in West Lafayette, IN.

Qian Niu

Graduate Student

I finished my undergraduate study in Xiamen University, China, and in the spring of 2003 I arrived at Bloomington for my graduate studies. I joined the YBE lab in the fall of 2003. I am especially interested in characterizing clathrin heavy chain trimerization and the defects during intracellular endocytotic pathway as well as cell mitotic process caused by failure of trimerization.

Sanjay Mishra

Research Assistant

Sanjay obtained his B.Sc. with Botany and Chemistry majors from a decrepit Northern Indian town at the banks of eternal Ganges and finished M.Sc. in Biochemistry from Lucknow University at Lucknow, the city of Nabobs. He obtained another Masters in Biochemical Engineering from the Institute of Technology at Banaras Hindu University in the holy town of Varanasi. He dropped out of his Ph.D. in Photobiology at its fag end, had a stint with Encyclopedia Britannica and sundry online dot coms writing K-12 science tutorials, and also learning the nitty gritty of customer relations. Since 2002 summers, Sanjay has been with Joel honing his skills in protein chemistry. “The predictability in the seemingly chaotic biological world fascinates me."

Stephen Helms

Undergraduate Researcher

Originally from Washington, IN, Stephen is currently a senior (graduating May 2005) at Indiana University majoring in biology (BS) and biochemistry (BA) with a math minor. He joined the Ybe lab in November of 2002 and is currently studying the regulatory behavior of the light chain and the binding of the light chain to the heavy chain. Stephen plans to go on to grad school where he would like to research signal transduction in the context of cancer or development using structural and biochemical techniques. Outside of the lab, Stephen enjoys reading and singing, which he often does as a cantor at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church.

Michael Drazer

Undergraduate Researcher

Recently graduated from high school, Michael is originally from Hebron, IN. He joined the team in July '04, as part of the Integrated Freshman Learning Experience at Indiana University, where he will be studying chemistry and biology. Michael enjoys running and reading in his free time.