Our team of interdisciplinary scientists
Charles Y. Lin - Assistant Professor - Principal Investigator - Co-Director THINC@BCM
Administrative
Briana Liberato - Administrative Assistant
Molecular Biology
Chemical Biology
Computational Biology
Profiles
Name: Elimelek Acuna
Nickname: Eli
Year joined BCM: 2019
Height: ≈6’
Position: Undergraduate Researcher
Undergrad/Alma Matter: Rice University 22’
Hometown: Brownsville, TX
Hobbies: Powerlifting, Miscellaneous Facts, Comedy Specials, Eating
Favorite Drink: Champurrado
Favorite Restaurant: Taquito Express, Mala Sichuan Bistro
Secret Talent: Meme Connoisseur
What you are working on: Genomic base editing of a single-nucleotide variant strongly associated with Chordoma.
Name: Tanner Beck
Nickname: Banner Tech
Year joined BCM: 2016
Height: 6'5"
Position: Senior Programmer/Analyst
Undergrad/alma matter: University of Iowa
Hometown: Ames, IA
Hobbies: Reading?
Favorite Drink: Lone Pint's Yellow Rose.
Favorite Restaurant: King's Dumpling, Yitian Plaza, Shenzhen.
Special Power (pokemon power): Beard.
Resistance: Sleep.
Secret Talent: Finding t-shirts with obscure references.
Quote: I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down", verbally, don't you?
What you are working on: Building a cluster.
Name: Kenneth Eagle
Nickname: Ken,The Eagle
Year joined BCM: 2016
Position: Grad student
Undergrad/alma matter: BS Chemical Engineering SUNY Buffalo, MS Chemical Engineering Caltech, MBA Finance Cleveland State University
Hometown: NY
Hobbies: Running, biking, reading
Favorite Drink: Water
Favorite Restaurant: Vasco & Piero's
What you are working on: Metabolism/cancer
Name: Selma Elsarrag
Year joined BCM: 2014, joined Lin lab in 2016
Height: 5’06”
Position: Graduate student
Undergrad/alma matter: Mary Baldwin College
Hometown: Don't have one
Hobbies: olympic style weightlifting/fitness, cooking/baking, perusing the internet
Favorite Drink: Americano with an extra espresso shot and a little half and half
Favorite Restaurant: Dimassi's Mediterranean Buffet
Secret Talent: Has yet to reveal itself to me
Quote: Just Do It - Nike
What you are working on: Transcriptional regulation in cardiovascular disease
Name: Brian Ho
Year joined BCM: 2016, joined Lin Lab: 2019
Height: 5'7"
Position: Graduate Student
Undergrad/alma matter: Rice University
Hometown: Wilmington, DE
Hobbies: Cooking, piano, League of Legends
Favorite Drink: Yakult
Favorite Restaurant: Shawarma Stop
What you are working on: Characterizing changes in alternative splicing
Name: Jošt Vrabič Koren
Nickname: Jost, Yost
Year joined BCM: 2018
Height: 181 cm
Position: Sr. Bioinformatician Analyst
Undergrad/alma matter: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
Hometown: Bistrica pri Tržiču, Slovenia
What you are working on: Researching and putting together pipelines, making them usable, and then helping others use them. Also working with data when asked to.
Name: Yidan Li
Year joined BCM: 2019
Position: Research Associate/Lab Manager
Alma Matter: Northeast Agricultural University, Tottori University
Hometown: Harbin, China
What you are working on: CRISPR/Cas9 mediated endogenous tagging and/or knockout of genes; lentivirus generation and transduction; generate CRISPR/lentiviral constructs; genomic and high throughput sequencing based assays; computational analysis of high-throughput sequencing data
Name: Tong Liang
Year joined BCM: 2015
Height: 5’02”
Position: Graduate student/ Research assistant
Undergrad/alma matter: Wuhan University
Hometown: Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China
Hobbies: Playing with my cat
Favorite Drink: Don’t really have one, as long as it has low calories
Favorite Restaurant: Nippon
Secret Talent: Meme pictures
Quote: Don't give up due to tiredness, because the power generates from desire.
What you are working on: How oncogenic Myc proteins interact with cellular lineages and can be targeted by small molecules
Name: Briana Liberato
Year joined BCM: 2009
Height: 5'05"
Position: Administrative Assistant
Hometown: Houston, TX
Hobbies: “browsing” at Half Priced Books & Target
Favorite Drink: Pumpkin Spice everything
Favorite Restaurant: Roberta’s in NYC
Quote: “When we all think alike, no one thinks very much.”
What you are working on: Raising a kind little human.
Name: Charles Lin
Nickname: Chuckles/Chas/z/Chazzie/Chuck Chuckleford CPA
Year joined BCM: 2015
Height: 5'10"
Alma Matter: Duke '06 BS Biology and Physics/ MIT ’12 Computational and Systems Biology
Hometown: San Antonio, TX
Hobbies: fly fishing, frisbee, mandolin pickin’
Special power: Subterfuge
Favorite Drink: Negroni
Favorite Restaurant: The Hungry Mother in Cambridge, MA (RIP)
Secret Talent: Not giving away my secret talent like everyone else in lab
Quote: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” —Jacob Riis
What you are working on: Assembling a great team of scientists to make myself obsolete as soon as possible (almost there!).
Name: Calla Olson
Nickname: COCO, Cadley Sholson, Halla Olspherd
Year joined BCM: 2018
Height: 5'11"
Position: Group Leader of Chemical Biology at THINC@BCM
Alma Matter: UNC Asheville ’08 BS Biology/ Brandeis University ’14 PhD Molecular Biology
Hometown: Waterloo, IA
Hobbies: My puppy pirate, mud races
Special power: Vendor Whisperer
Favorite Drink: French 75
Favorite Restaurant: La Famiglia Giorgio (Boston, MA)
Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff
Secret Talent: I can touch my tongue to my nose
Quote: “Me want cookie” Cookie Monster
What you are working on: Attempting to usurp Charles Lin to make him obsolete as soon as possible.
Name: Dan Park
Nickname: Woojeezy, DanoString
Year Joined BCM: 2017
Height: In reality I’m 5’8, stand on my money now I’m 5’8.5
Position: Graduate Student
Alma Mater: Dartmouth College
Hometown: Manhattan, KS
Hobbies: Hearthstone, Tennis, Pup Fostering
Special Power: Becoming the human version of the Grimace Face Emoji
Favorite Drink: Tom Collins
Favorite Restaurant: Korean Garden in Kansas
Quote: “Real G’s move in silence like lasagna” – Weezy
What you are working on: Utilizing small molecule inhibitors to decipher the transcriptional CDK axis and potentially develop novel cancer therapies
Name: Monika Perez
Nickname: Mo
Year joined BCM: 2017
Height: 5’4'“
Position: Research Technician
Undergrad/alma matter: University of Tulsa 18’ BS Chemical Engineering
Hometown: St. Louis, MO
Hobbies: Bouldering, training my puppy
Favorite Drink: B&T frozen coffee
Favorite Restaurant: B&T Cafe
What you are working on: Characterizing the super-enhancer landscape of multiple cancer types and making publication quality figures
Name: Rosie
Nickname: El dudereno
Year joined BCM: 2016
Height: almost 5 ft.
Position: Sr. Research Assistant
Undergrad/alma matter: University of Houston
Hometown: Houston
Hobbies: Loving my Grumpa-lumps
Favorite Drink: Makers Mark and mineral water
Favorite Restaurant: Peppermill Fireside Restaurant (NV)
What you are working on: Transcription factor control of glioblastoma subtypes and heterogeneity
Name: Hadley Sheppard
Nickname: Hads
Year joined BCM: 2016
Height: 5'7
Position: Graduate Student
Undergrad/alma matter: UC Davis
Hometown: Palo Alto, CA
Hobbies: Running, reading, horseback riding, cooking
Favorite Drink: Double espresso over ice/bourbon with lime
Favorite Restaurant: Samovar (San Francisco, CA)
Special Power (pokemon power):/Hogwarts House: Slytherin
Resistance: Cats
Secret Talent: Geography (not)
Quote: "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard" Winnie the Pooh/A. A. Milne
What you are working on: Investigating brachyury gene regulation in chordoma to identify novel therapeutic targets
Name: Irtisha Singh
Year joined BCM: 2017
Position: Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Grad/alma matter: Cornell University
What you are working on: Computational approaches to learn transcriptional regulatory circuitries of heterogeneous tumor subtypes in glioblastoma and other cancers.
Name: Harrison E. Smith
Nickname: Harry
Year joined BCM: 2018
Height: 5’9”
Position: Research Technician
Undergrad/alma matter: University of Houston
Hometown: NYC
Hobbies: Running, drawing, and living my best life
Favorite Drink: Martini
Favorite Restaurant: Oishii
What you are working on: Applying computational procedures for analyzing dynamic changes in genetic regulation across different cancers.
Alumni
Charles Danan - now at UPenn MSTP
Maricela Ramirez - with BCM MHG
Helen Wei - University of Chicago Medical School
Stella Trout - Reed College
Jordan Kramer - Georgetown University
Rachel Hirsch - Flatiron School Data Science
Rohan Bhardwaj - Consulting!
Nikitha Cherayil - McGovern Medical School at UTHealth
