Katya Heldwein, PhD

Principal Investigator

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Katya received her PhD from Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, OR where she studied ligand recognition by bacterial transcription regulators using x-ray crystallography in the laboratory of Richard Brennan. She then did her postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School in the laboratory of Stephen Harrison where she initially worked on clathrin adaptor complexes and later delved into herpesvirus cell entry. She opened her own laboratory at Tufts University School of Medicine in the Fall of 2006.

Elizabeth Draganova, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

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Elizabeth received her PhD in Chemistry from Georgia State University after completing her BS in Biochemistry from Kennesaw State University. She is interested in understanding the structural and mechanistic features of the HSV-1 nuclear egress complex by utilizing a variety of biochemical and biophysical techniques.

Ellen White, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

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Ellen  received her PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University after completing her BS in Chemistry at James Madison University. Ellen is working on isolating and characterizing the prefusion form of viral fusogen glycoprotein B (gB) from HCMV and HSV-1.

Adam Hilterbrand, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

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Adam received his PhD in Microbiology from the University of Texas, Austin after receiving a BS in Molecular Biology from Loyola University Chicago.  His research focuses on identifying specific herpesviral glycoprotein contributions to entry using a recently developed vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) pseudotyping system.

Andrea Koenigsberg

Postdoctoral Fellow

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Andrea received a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Bowdoin College and a PhD in Molecular Microbiology from Tufts University. Andrea’s project focuses on the structural and biochemical characterization of conserved tegument protein UL37 that is necessary for capsid trafficking and identifying novel interactions with viral and host partners.

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Zemplen Pataki

MD/PhD Student, Molecular Microbiology Program

Zemplen graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor's degree in Health and Human Biology. He is using genetic, biochemical, and cellular approaches to elucidate how HSV glycoproteins cooperate to trigger membrane fusion at the appropriate time.

Bing Dai

PhD Student, CMDB Program

Bing received a Bachelors in Medicinal Chemistry from China Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing, China and a Masters Pharmacology and Drug Development from Tufts. His project focuses on identifying host proteins that facilitate HSV nuclear egress and determining the mechanisms by which they do so.