Frank’s interests center upon understanding the basic biology of viral replication strategies and the mechanisms the immune system deploys to interfere with these diverse strategies. Outside of the lab, he enjoys distance running, cooking, video games, and backpacking.
Research Area: COVID-19 (SARS COVI-2)
Tabata
After graduating from the school of pharmacy, Showa University in Japan, Takako worked at Tampa Bay Research Institute in Florida where she became interested in Herpesviruses. After returning from Florida, she continued to study Herpesviruses and received her Ph.D. from Showa University. She then moved back to the U.S.A to develop a new area of research in the field of congenital human cytomegalovirus and Zika virus infection at UCSF, and studied host-virus interactions, pathogenesis, and treatments using human explant models. In the Ott Lab, she continues interested in relevant models of diseases and works on a search for novel antivirals against SARS-CoV2. At home, she is crazy about black kitties. She also loves going to live performances (opera, classic music and jazz), watching movies in the theater, walking by the beach, reading Japanese novels and dining out.
Kumar
Renu is in awe of viruses – tiny entities that can create big havoc in a cell and the world. She received her PhD from UC Berkeley with Britt Glaunsinger researching host shut-off in herpesvirus infections and pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at Gladstone Institutes with Melanie Ott focused on HCV proteomics and genomics. She has taken a ‘scenic’ path since then – developing antivirals for HBV in industry and leveraging synthetic biology for virology applications at CZ Biohub. Here, Renu is a Scientific Program Manager fostering COVID-related R&D and translating research into products such as viral diagnostics. In her free time Renu loves cooking without recipes, reading novels, and exploring the world through her love of travel.
Aviv
Gili grew up in Israel where she obtained her PhD in Microbiology from Tel-Aviv university. Her PhD research focused on characterization of Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis unique megaplasmid and its contribution to S. Infantis pathogenicity. In the Ott lab she studies the effect of HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 infection on intestinal stem cells function and the barrier integrity using human gut organoids. In her spare time, she enjoys skiing, playing tennis, roller skating, traveling, hiking and playing with her Dachshund puppy.
Simoneau
Camille is a BMS graduate student interested in how organoids can be used to understand host-virus interactions. In her free time she likes to climb, bake for the lab, and watch/read murder mysteries.
Tsou
Chia-Lin received her B.S. in agronomy from National Taiwan University, and her M.S. in genetics from UC Davis. Before joining the Ott lab, she studied the role of chemokine receptor CCR2 involved in cell signaling and trafficking of monocytes, macrophages, hematopoietic progenitor and stem cells. She is currently the lab manager, and works on generating viral proteome library and CRISPR-Cas13a SARS-CoV-2 detection assay. In her free time, Chia-Lin enjoys experimenting new recipes in the kitchen, jewelry making, orchids growing, playing Chinese music instruments, and singing in a chamber chorus.
Hayashi
A San Francisco native, Jennifer left the Bay Area to study microbiology at UC Davis and subsequently UMass Amherst. During her PhD, she explored growth associated membrane domains Mycobacteria; in the Ott Lab, she studies viral protein-mediate alterations to host lipid metabolism. Outside of the lab, she enjoys eclectic cooking, hiking, and playing with all the dogs
Suryawanshi
Rahul was born in India. After predoctoral research on HIV, Rahul did his Ph.D. in Biotechnology at North Maharashtra University, India. With prior experience on host-virus interaction his focus is to study the in-vivo aspects of coronavirus infection. In the spare time Rahul likes to travel the world and spend time with his family.
Chen
Jesse grew up in Taiwan and Southern California. She received a B.A. in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley. She joined the lab with an interest in infectious diseases and wishes to develop a deeper understanding of the genetic and molecular networks involved, using primary cell models.
Stephens
Graduated from University of San Francisco with a B.S. in Molecular Biology. Currently working on direct detection of SARS-CoV-2 using CRISPR-Cas13. In my free time I love exploring and traveling, basically you will always find me on a new adventure