Elsa Yan
Associate Professor
elsa.yan@yale.edu

Elsa Yan was born and grew up in Hong Kong. She graduated in the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1995. Working with Kenneth Eisenthal on nonlinear optics and surface sciences, she obtained her Ph.D. at Columbia University in 2000. From 2000-2004, she was a postdoctoral fellow in Richard Mathies's lab at UC Berkeley and a visiting fellow in Thomas Sakmar's lab at the Rockfeller Univeresity. She combined Raman spectroscopy with techniques in molecular biology to understand the molecular mechanism of signal transduction in G protein coupled receptor rhodopsin. In 2004, she joined The Rockfeller University, where she continued to develop methods in expression and purification of membrane proteins. In 2007, Elsa became an Assistant Professor of Chemsitry at Yale.  

  
Gang Ma
Associate Research Scientist
gang.ma@yale.edu

Gang received his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Peking University in China. He then worked as a post-doctoral fellow in Prof. Heather Allen’s lab at The Ohio State University. He applied vibrational sum frequency generation (VSFG) spectroscopy to study structures at interfaces. He developed both broad bandwidth and scanning technologies of VSFG laser systems. 

Gang joined the Yan Lab in early 2008. His research focuses on membrane-mediated protein aggregation and signal transduction through G protein-coupled receptors.  

 

 

 
Jian Liu
Postdoctoral Associate
jian.liu.jl35@yale.edu

Jian grew up in Beijing, China. He received B.Sc. at Peking University in 1999, majoring in both physical and organic Chemistry. He also obtained a M.Sc. in 2002 at the Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences in the field of nonlinear optics. He then moved to Columbia and joined the Chemistry Department to work with Prof. Kenneth Eisenthal. He received his Ph.D. in 2007. 

Jian’s research focus at Yale concerns second harmonic generation and the study of how peptides affect the permeability of the cell membrane.  

 

 

 
Nivedita Mitra
Postdoctoral Associate
Nivedita.mitra@yale.edu

Nivedita is from India. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Delhi, in 1997, majoring in Biochemistry. This was followed by MS in Life Sciences in 2000 and a PhD degree in Biophysics (with Prof. Avadhesha Surolia) from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2005 where she studied thermodynamics of protein unfolding and protein ligand interaction. She went on to do postdoctoral work at UCSD Cellular and medicine with Dr. Ajit Varki studying human chimpanzee differences and human specific differences in a class of protein called Siglecs.

She has been in the Yan lab since March 2009 where she studies activation of Rhodopsin. 

 

 

 
Victoria Mooney
Ph.D. Chemsitry 12
Joint Student with Zilm Lab
victoria.mooney@yale.edu

Vicki grew up in Wisconsin and graduated from Viterbo University in 2007 with a B.Sc. She joined Yale as a graduate student in 2007 and is pursuing a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and spending time with her husband and two daughters. 

Vicki produces rhodopsin and rhodopsin mutants that have either the retinal chromophore labeled with 13C or amino acids labeled with 15N or 13C. She analyzes the labeled rhodopsin using NMR spectroscopy in order to understand the visual signal transduction process. 

 

 
Li Fu
Ph.D. Chemsitry 13
li.fu@yale.edu

Li Fu graduated from Unviersity of Science and Technology of China (USTC) with a B.Sc. He joined Yale as a graduate student in 2008 and is pursuing his Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry.

Li Fu is going to apply SFG spectroscopy to study the protein folding at the interfaces. He studies the lipid induced conformational change of intrinsically disordered proteins at the air/water interface.

 

 
Harrison Xiao Bai
M.D. 13
xiao.bai@aya.yale.edu

Harrison was born in Beijing and grew up in Shanghai. He attended Cranbrook Kingswood, a private boarding school in Bloomfield Hills, MI. He graduated from Yale with a degree in biology in 2007. In 2009, Harrison returned to Yale as a medical student.

Harrison's project is the continuation of his senior research projefct that he initiated in the Yan lab when he was an undergraduate student. The aims are to incorporate unnatural amino acids into G protein-coupled receptors and intrinsically disordered proteins as vibrational probes for SFG studies.

  
Eugene Serebryany
Yale University '11
evgeny.serebryany@yale.edu

Eugene was born in Moscow, Russia and went to Newton South High School in Newton, MA. He is now in the class of 2011 at Yale University. He enjoys learning new languages. He is also part of the Yale MathCounts outreach program, which is designed to encourage New Haven middle school students to learn mathematics. He also enjoys playing intramural sports in his free time. 

Eugene’s project aims at enabling study of metabotropic glutamate receptor through the use of fluorescent resonance energy transfer (FRET). This procedure is accomplished by incorporating a pair of unnatural amino acids into specific sites on the protein so that dye molecules can covalently bind to the pair. 

 

Monica Liu
Yale University '11
monica.liu@yale.edu

Monica was born in China and grew up in both Connecticut and Indiana. She attended Dodd Middle School and Cheshire High School. She is in the class of 2011 at Yale University.  She particularly enjoys both traveling and the occasional game of golf. 

Monica investigates the thermal properties of visual pigments by UV-Vis spectroscopy and HPLC. She also works on the incorporation of unnatural amino acids in rhodopsin, potentially allowing the conformational changes of rhodopsin to be examined by spectroscopic methods. 

 

Qi Wen Li
qwli@syr.edu

Qi Wen Li is an undergraduate student at Syracuse University. She spent the summer of 2009 in Yan's lab working on incorporation of unnatural amino acids into GPCR rhodopsin. During the summer, she also participated in the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program at the Yale. She hopes to pursue a MD-PhD degree and become a physician scientist. At Syracuse University, she works in Doyle's lab on energy independent iron transport in the gram-positive bacteria.

Denitza Balyozova
denitza.balyozova@yale.edu

Denny is from Bulgaria.  She obtained her B.Sc. in Chemistry and Biochemical Engineering at Jacobs University of Bremen, Germany. In 2006, she moved to the US and spent a semester in Georgetown University. Denny focused on applying the method of unnatrual amino acdi mutagenesis to rhodopsin. She obtained her M. Phil. in 2009 and will continue her master program at Georgetown.

  
Tina Ho
Chemistry ’09
tina.ho@yale.edu

Tina did her senior research project in the Yan lab. She used unnatural amino acids to study biomolecules at membrane surfaces. In particular, her research focused on rhodopsin and alpha-synuclein. Tina graduated in 2009 with the Russell Henry Chittenden Prize an award to the senior in natural scienecs or in mathematics who ranks highest in scholarship. She has entered the MD/PhD program in University of Pennsylvania. She wants to eventually become a professor of medicine.

 

 

 
Alicia Bowen
SURF Student
(2008 Summer)

Alicia grew up both in Maryland and Illinois and attended John F. Kennedy High School in Maryland. She was referred to Yale after presenting her research at a science conference. Alicia is passionate about Autism awareness and enjoys collecting movies. 

Alicia conducted research concerning rod and cone pigments. She examined the chemical and spectroscopic differences between visual pigments. 

 

 
Aaron Green
Vassar '12
(2008 Summer)

Aaron's home town is New Haven, CT. A 2008 graduate of Choate Rosemary Hall, he is an incoming member of the class of 2012 at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.  Aaron enjoys theater, drawing, web design, and his pet black lab, Billie.

Aaron volunteered for Professor Yan’s lab in the summer of 2008 and also designed this website. Click here to visit "aGreenDesign".

  
Aditi Bhagat
Research Assistant
aditi.bhagat@yale.edu
(2007-2008)

Aditi is from South Africa. She attended Hunter College-CUNY as an undergraduate and got her B.A. in Biochemistry. She first came to Yale by way of Professor Yan. Aditi enjoys baking and reading. For her future career plans, she hopes to attend medical school.

Aditi helped get the Yan Lab up and running. She worked with tissue cultures and made stable cell lines for expressing of opsin proteins in large scale. She also assisted with various projects in the lab. Aditi was the main conductor of the lab’s Bioreactor.