The Desai Lab

Melinda keeps the lab running. You can find her at HUH 403, x68062.

Thomas joined the Desai Lab in January 2020. He earned his Ph.D. at UPMC in Paris in theoretical physics then worked on computational immunology with Aleksandra Walczak and Thierry Mora. In the Desai Lab, Thomas is working on mapping the affinity landscape of in-vivo antibodies against various antigens and on understanding the theoretical basis for B-cells evolution.

Artur first joined the lab on 2017 as an exchange M.S. student, and then as a Ph.D. student in 2018. He earned his B.S from the U. of Brasília, and joint M.S. from U. of Groningen and U. of Montpellier. He is currently using deep-sequencing data from experimentally evolved yeast populations to answers questions about predictability of evolutionary dynamics.

Shreyas received his B. Sc. in biology from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 2018, and he joined the lab in 2019. He is using QTL mapping in budding yeast to understand the statistical structure of pleiotropy. He is also using long-term experimental evolution in different yeast species to quantify genetic parallelism across species.

Alief earned his BA in maths and biology from Carleton College and joined the lab in 2019. He is studying how repetitive exposure to COVID-19 and flu vaccinations affects the binding affinity and the recognition breadth of B cell receptors within a repertoire.

Tanush joined the lab in 2019. He is currently working to apply molecular barcoding methods to the E. coli Long-term evolution experiment.

Eliot received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2018 and joined the lab in 2019. He uses a mix of experimental and computational techniques to study how factors such as sexual reproduction and gene networks impact the speed and trajectory of evolution.

Misha joined the lab in 2020. She is developing quantitative genetics methods for trait mapping in budding yeast, and conducting experimental evolution to understand the role of spatial structure in promoting adaptation in inhomogeneous environments

Jeffrey joined the lab in 2021. He is interested in understanding the structure and statistics of protein-protein interaction landscapes.

Jack joined the lab in 2021. He is working on molecular barcoding methods in the E. coli long-term evolution experiment, and is also broadly interested in evolutionary theory.

Berk joined the lab in 2022. He is working to understand evolutionary dynamics in the immune system using a combination of in vitro directed evolution and random mutagenesis to analyze the landscapes of antibody binding affinities.