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David Chester
 david.chester@yale.edu
As a native of Connecticut, David came to the lab in 1999 after spending 3 years as a faculty member in the Natural Science Department at Fresno Pacific University in Fresno, CA. Prior to to that, he was an Assistant Professor in the Biomolecular Structure Analysis Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center. Throughout his academic career, David has been interested in the structure and function of membrane proteins. As a biochemist/biophysicist by training his research has involved a number of 'tools' to include x-ray and neutron diffraction on reconstituted membranes, calorimetry, fluoresence and diffusional dynamics. He is currently using Cryo-Electron Microscopy approaches to examine the structure and function of IP3 Receptors and Ion Channels reconstituted into lipid vesicles. In addition, he has been developing surface chemistry approaches to facilitate structure experiments which would facilitate autimated EM data collection and analysis. Outside the lab, David is the Vice President of the Crossroads Rescue Mission in Meriden, CT. which meets the needs of Homeless and Basic Needs challenged individuals within central Connecticut. He is also strongly involved in his local church as both a teacher and preacher. In addition, he has just recently completed writing a book, "A Chord in Time", which life as a function of faith through trials.
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Youshan Yang
Youshan Yang joined the lab in May 1992. He is from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
Youshan majored in applied mathematics and has a PhD in biomedical engineering from Zhejiang University. Presently he is studying voltage-gated potassium channels and Ca++ and Na+ gated potassium channels. He uses patch-clamp techniques to characterize channel behavior and kinetics at the levels of macroscopic currents or single channels.
He is interested in new electronic gadgets and enjoys
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Yixuan Zhang
Yixuan Zhang was born in Kaifeng, China. She got her M.D. degree from Jiangsu University in China. She joined the lab in March 2008 and is working as a postdoc fellow in the lab. She is learning laboratory techniques on molecular and cellular biology. Her main work involves the development of expression constructs for calcium- and voltage-gated channels (BK channels), and their expression and purification for structural studies.
yi-xuan.zhang@yale.edu
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Yi Chen
Yi was born in Fuzhou, China. She received her bachelor of medicine (M.D)
from Peking University in 2006. After several lab rotations on structural
biology and neuroscience, she joined the Sigworth lab in 2007 as a PhD
candidate in cellular and molecular physiology. Her thesis project aims at
localizing the voltage sensor for a Kv1 channel in different functional
states. She is utilizing the developing method of random
spherically-constrained (RSC) single-particle electron cryo-microscopy for
her work.
yi.chen@yale.edu
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Andrew Barthel
Andrew Barthel is from Shoreview, Minnesota and earned a Bachelor of Science in
Electrical Engineering (BSEE) from the University of Notre Dame. He is
currently developing new computational algorithms to help determine the
structure of membrane proteins, and also tutors students in math and sciences.
In his free time he is an advocate for pedestrian safety in New Haven, enjoys
running and biking, and is an avid reader. His research interest is in novel
applications of statistical methods in biological systems and studies.
andrew.barthel@yale.edu
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Mingyu Ye
Mingyu is a visiting PhD student from Shanghai Tongji University, working on the structure and function of conotoxins. His thesis work includes purifying venom components, structurally characterizing interesting toxins, preparing toxins, and functionally screening toxins’ potential targets with electrophysiological techniques. The long term goal of his research is to identify potential therapeutic candidates for the treatment of intractable pain and to develop tools for neuroscience applications.
mingyu.ye@yale.edu
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Former lab members
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Kate Klemic
Kate was a member of the lab from 1998-2007 developing new technologies for studying ion channels. She received the B. Sc. Degree in physics from Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, in 1989 and the Ph.D. in Biophysics/Bioengineering from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH in 1998.
She worked at IBM Research from 1989 to 1991 in III-IV semiconductor microelectronic research and Currently, she is a scientific consultant for Warner Instruments, Hamden, CT, working to commercialize some of those technologies.
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Teresa Giraldez
Teresa was a member of the lab from 2002 to 2005. She was born in Madrid, Spain, and she studied Chemistry and Biochemistry at Oviedo University, where she subsequently obtained a PhD in Biochemistry. Her project in the lab was the study of conformational changes of large conductance calcium- and voltage-gated channels (BK), combining patch-clamp and fluorescence microscopy techniques.
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Shumin Bian
Shumin Bian was a member of the lab from 2003-2007 working on the biochemistry of ion channels, particularly using cryoEM for structure-functional study. .
shumin.bian@yale.edu
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Farah Laiwalla
Farah is from Karachi, Pakistan. She pursued Electrical and Computer engineering and premedical studies as an undergraduate at Lafayette college in Easton, PA. She worked on the integrated patch-clamp project and is now a student in an MD/PhD program at Brown University.
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Xiaohui (Frank) Li
From Henan Province, China, Xiaohui Li joined the lab in the summer of 2001 and graduated with a PhD in Electrical Engineering in 2006. His thesis work was on the planar patch clamp project; he was also a member of Professor Mark Reed's lab.
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Puey Ounjai
Puey was a visiting student from Thailand. His project was to use CryoEM to determine the 3D structure of Bacillus Thuringiensis Cry4B toxin in the membrane. Puey earned a B.S. in Biotechnology from King Mongkut's Institute of Technology in Bangkok. He is presently a PhD student in Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering at Mahidol Unversity in Nakompathom, Thailand.
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Lalitha Venkataramanan
Lalitha was an Electrical Engineering student who did her PhD work with us, graduating in 1998. Her thesis involved analyzing ion channel data using hidden Markov models; her advisors were Profs. Sigworth (Physiology) and Kuc (EE).
Lalitha is currently a senior research scientist at Schlumberger Doll Research in Ridgefield, CT. She is program manager of the measurement interpretation program in the Math and Modeling department. It may seem to be a long way from ion channels to NMR in oil wells, but in the past few years she has done very well, working on inversion algorithms for nuclear magnetic resonance data obtained downhole. She is currently working on answer products from permanent downhole measurements. She has given a few invited talks at universities and is the author or co-author of 12 peer-reviewed journal articles and 3 patents.
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