People

Sebla B. Kutluay, Ph. D.

Principal Investigator

Associate Professor

Graduate Program Affiliations:

• Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis
• Plant and Microbial Sciences
• Biochemistry
• Computational and Systems Biology

Office: Room 8220, McDonnell Pediatrics Research Building
Phone: 314-747-8908
Email: kutluay@wustl.edu

Abhishek Kumar, Ph. D.

Staff Scientist

Abhishek is originally from India and joined our lab in 2022. Abhishek is investigating the rules that govern HIV-1 integrase binding to the viral genomic RNA and how this event regulates virion maturation. On a second project, Abhishek is working to indentify new host factors that regulate viral RNA export and translation.

Sanja Dokic, Ph. D.

Postdoctoral fellow

Sanja is originally from Serbia and joined our lab in 2023. Sanja is trying to identify how HIV-1 integration is regulated in different cell types.

Ming (Celine) Xia

DBBS Graduate Student (PMB Program)

Celine is originally from China and joined our lab in 2023. She will be working on understanding the dependence of HIV-1 integrase-genomic RNA interactions on other viral proteins.

Hung (Kyle) R. Vuong

DBBS Graduate Student (MMMP Program)

Kyle is from Kentucky, USA and joined our lab in 2019. Kyle is investigating the RNA-binding properties of numerous antiviral host proteins and ISGs. He is also figuring out cool ways by which retroviruses package their genomes selectively and only as a dimer. Kyle is the recipient of NSF graduate research fellowship and has been supported by an NIH training grant.

Jenna E. Eschbach

DBBS Graduate Student (PMB Program)

Jenna is originally from Illinois, USA and joined our lab in 2021. Jenna is investigating how the stability of the HIV-1 capsid lattice alters innate immune sensing of HIV-1. Jenna is the recipient of the departmental Sondra Schlesinger and the NIH F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Fellowships.

Qianzi Zhou

Bioinformatics Research Assistant

Qianzi is originally from China and joined our lab in 2023. She is developing data analysis pipelines for various NGS-based methods heavily utilized in the lab. Qianzi is a master of many languages including Kazakh! Her goal is to obtain a PhD in bioinformatics/computer science and wherever she ends up will be extremely lucky to have her.

Qibo Wang

Undergraduate research assistant

Qibo is originally from China and joined our lab as a full-time summer Wash U undergraduate student in 2023. Currently, Qibo is working with our senior graduate student, Kyle, on understanding the role of RNA cap methylation in HIV-1 infection and innate immunity. Qibo is the recipient of 2024 Wash U BioSURF fellowship.

This could be YOU!

Any position

Come talk to us about the possibility of joining the lab!