C.WANG

Nabin

Postdoctoral Associate

Nabin's expertise and research interest are in molecular biophysics of proteins involved in Alzheimer’s and cancer, as well as physical properties of lipid membranes and protein-lipid interactions. He has broad expertise in spectroscopic techniques such as fluorescence, circular dichroism, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and solid-state NMR. Nabin received his BS in Physics (Physics, Chemistry, Math) from Tribhuvan University, Nepal in 2010. He moved to University of Texas, Brownsville, USA in 2012 where he got his MS in Physics (Biophysics). In 2014, Nabin joined University of Central Florida (USF), Orlando, USA and received his PhD in Physics in 2019. During his PhD, he worked on the structure-function relation of the membrane pore formed by amyloid beta peptide using spectroscopic techniques including solid state NMR. He then worked as a joint-postdoctoral researcher (2019-2020) between USF and University of California, Irvine to probe the self-assembly of Reflectin (Ref2Cx4) protein that comes from the light organs of cephalopods. In 2020, Nabin joined Dr. Wang's lab here in RPI to work on single molecule kinetic studies of the mechanism of gamma-secretase and familial Alzheimer's Disease. His projects also include biophysical characterizations of tau and p53.

James Gibson

Research Associate

James earned his BS in chemistry from Harvey Mudd College in 1995. He earned his PhD in chemistry from Penn State in 2001, where he studied solid-state NMR under Professor Karl T. Mueller. While at Penn State, he primarily worked on solid-state NMR method development and the application of solid-state NMR to glasses. James was a postdoc at the University of Washington from 2001 to 2005, where he had his first foray into biological sciences under the direction of Professors Patrick S. Stayton (bioengineering) and Gary P. Drobny (chemistry). While there, he studied the interactions and dynamics of the binding of salivary peptides to hydroxyapatite, the main mineral component of teeth using solid-state NMR. James ventured into solution-state NMR of proteins under the direction of Professor James G. Kempf in the chemistry department at RPI in 2006 and 2007, primarily working to understand how different CPMG-type sequences worked together. After that, he spent 10 years in industry performing solution-state NMR on silicone materials and their precursors. In 2018, James came back to RPI to work in Dr. Wang's research group. He studies the interactions of proteins and their binding partners with high resolution NMR spectroscopy. He is also responsible for adapting pulse sequences from other laboratories to our laboratory for use.

Lin Pan

Research Associate

Lin earned her BS degree in Pharmacy from Ocean University of China in 2017. Then she took a successive post graduate and doctoral program and joined Laboratory of Glycoscience and Glycotechnology (Advisor: Prof. Guangli Yu, Dean), Ocean University of China. During the graduate student period, she focused on the field of the interaction between carbohydrate and gut microbiota. She used in vitro anerobic fermentation system to investigate how human gut microbiota digest the polysaccharide into oligosaccharide. In addition, she also investigated the therapeutic effects of natural polysaccharide on colitis mouse through modulate the composition of gut microbiota. She earned her doctoral degree of medicine in 2023. She gained professional experience and skills with HPLC, LC-MS, colitis Mouse Models, culture of anaerobic bacteria and analysis of polysaccharide and oligosaccharide. In 2023, she joined Prof. Wang’s lab here in RPI out of interest in research related to NMR technology and Alzheimer's disease. Her focus is working on the protein-protein and protein-glycan interaction in Alzheimer’s disease and drug screening for Alzheimer’s disease, using NMR and SPR. She will mainly focus on the Reelin protein in the Alzheimer’s disease.

Dylan Mah

Graduate

Dylan Mah is a first-year doctoral student in biology who joined the Wang Lab in the Spring of 2019. After graduating from SUNY Binghamton University in 2015 with a B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology. He spent a year working in a clinical laboratory prior to coming to RPI in the Fall of 2018. His area of research interest is the molecular biology of aging and age-related diseases, with a focus on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Shannon Faris

Graduate

Shannon graduated from the University of New Haven with a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Forensic Science. She joined RPI in Fall of 2019 to work towards a Ph.D. in chemistry. Shannon’s current research focuses primarily in pharmacology, drug discovery and potential inhibiters of neuro-degenerative disease, with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s.

Anqesha Murray

Graduate

Anqesha is from Rochester, New York, and received her associate’s degree in Liberal Arts and Biology from Monroe Community College in 2014. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Microbiology and Immunology and a minor in American Sign Language and Dance at the University of Rochester. She then attended Brown University as an NIH Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) Scholar in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Anqesha came to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in the fall of 2020 to pursue her PhD in Biology. She projects focus on mechanisms of tau in Alzheimer's disease.

Nathan Smith

Graduate

Nathan is from Bradford Pennsylvania. He graduated from Mount Aloysius College in the spring of 2020 with a bachelors degree in Biology with specializations in Molecular Biotechnology and Pre-Health as well as minors in Scientific Communications and Vocal Performance. He began his first year as a PhD student in the BCBP program in the fall of 2020. He will characterize the small molecules inhibitors of protein aggregation.

Paige Nowak

Graduate

Paige is born and raised in Buffalo, NY. She received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in Psychological Sciences at RPI in May 2022. Paige joined the PhD program in fall 2022 and focuses on the role of Apolipoprotein E and its isoforms in Alzheimer’s disease.
Personal interests: Playing with her puppy, watching the Buffalo Bills win, and dancing.

Kristina Jones

Graduate

Kristina is from Murrieta, California. She graduated from California State University San Marcos in spring of 2022 with a BS degree in Biochemistry. She started at RPI in Fall 2022 as a PhD student in the BCBP program. Her current research primarily focuses on protein-protein and protein-glycan interaction with an emphasis on Alzheimer Disease.

Matthew Widdicombe

Graduate

Matt is from Albrightsville, Pennsylvania and received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Wilkes University in 2022. His undergraduate research work with Dr. Henkels involved the site-specific incorporation of fluorine-containing unnatural amino acids into GFP for use in 19F-NMR experiments. He started his PhD program in Biochemistry and Biophysics (BCBP) at RPI in the fall of 2022, where he then joined Dr. Wang's research group in the spring of 2023. The main project he works on is the characterization of the interaction between Tau protein's Proline-Rich Region II (PRR2) and Cyclophilin A (CypA) through solution NMR. He also works on other projects in the lab utilizing analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) and the R programming language.

Annan Wu

Graduate

Annan comes from China and is an exchange scholar. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in Food Science and Engineering from Beijing Forestry University and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Food Science and Engineering at China Agricultural University. His main focus is on the intervention effects of food-derived bioactive substances on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD).