The MIT Biology Catalyst Symposium is part of an ongoing effort to bring outstanding postdocs to MIT to engage with members of our community. Aimed specifically at postdocs pursuing academic careers across many areas of biology, the three-day symposium provides a venue for participants to share their research, discuss exciting new directions, make new professional connections, and get to know the department. The event also includes mentoring activities to support the speakers in pursuing independent academic positions.
The 2025 Catalyst Symposium will take place on April 30th-May 2nd, 2025.
2025 Post Doc Catalyst Fellows:
- Green Ahn, University of Washington
- Almudena Chaves-Perez, MSKCC-Sloan-Kettering Institute
- Victoria Deneke, IMP Vienna
- Anita Gola, The Rockefeller University
- Victor Lopez, UT Southwestern
- Reika Tei, Stanford University
- Samuel (Channel) Thompson, Stanford University
- Shanice Webster, Duke University
 Green Ahn (she/her) |
Leveraging de novo protein design to reprogram cellular machinery | Green Ahn is an HHMI-Jane Coffin Childs Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. David Baker at the Institute of Protein Design/University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry with Prof. Carolyn Bertozzi at Stanford University. During her graduate work, Green developed a novel therapeutic modality called lysosome-targeting chimeras (LYTACs) to degrade extracellular and membrane proteins by harnessing lysosomal trafficking pathways. Beyond exploring therapeutic applications in several disease contexts, she leveraged LYTACs as a tool to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms of receptor trafficking and lysosomal maturation through functional genomics and proteomics. During her postdoctoral training, Green is using machine learning-based protein design methods to develop de novo effectors to rewire the cellular machinery to induce selective functional outcomes across diverse cellular processes and disease contexts. She aims to develop tunable and specific de novo protein tools to reshape endogenous cellular pathways to gain fundamental mechanistic insights and discover novel therapeutic avenues. |
Almudena Chaves-Perez |
Metabolic reprogramming as a therapeutic strategy: uncovering vulnerabilities in tissue regeneration and cancer | |
 Victoria Deneke (she/her) |
How life begins: insights from a conserved protein complex in vertebrate fertilization | Victoria Deneke studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame and then completed her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at Duke University. During her PhD she was in the laboratory of Dr. Stefano Di Talia, where she studied the synchronization of the nuclear cell cycles in Drosophila embryogenesis. She then joined the laboratory of Dr. Andrea Pauli in 2019 for her postdoctoral work, where she has been studying how sperm and egg come together at a molecular level using zebrafish as a model organism. |
 Anita Gola (she/her) |
Keeping the Skin in Check: a Novel Immune Regulator of Stem Cell Function in the Epidermis | Anita Gola is a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller University in the laboratory Dr. Elaine Fuchs. She received her BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Southampton, followed by an MSc in Integrated Immunology at the University of Oxford. She was awarded a Wellcome Trust-NIH PhD Fellowship, which led her to work on liver-stage malaria vaccines with Dr. Adrian Hill at the Jenner Institute (University of Oxford) and on immune-spatial positioning in the liver microenvironment with Dr. Ronald Germain (NIAID, NIH). Her current research focuses on the signaling circuits and spatial organization between skin stem cells and immune resident cells. |
 Victor Lopez (he/him) |
The Metazoan Polyisoprenol Salvage Pathway | Victor grew up in San Diego and received his B.S. in Biochemistry/Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. While at UCSD, he performed undergraduate research in the laboratory of Antonio De Maio, where he studied the interaction of heat shock proteins with lipid bilayers. In 2015, Victor joined the graduate program at UT Southwestern Medical Center. As a graduate student in the lab of Vincent S. Tagliabracci, he characterized two new kinase families from plant and human pathogens that target HSP90 and phosphatidylinositols, respectively. He is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Tagliabracci lab and was selected as a Hanna Gray Fellow in 2022. He continues to combine bioinformatics and biochemistry to identify and characterize new protein families. Victor hopes that characterizing these proteins will reveal their biochemical functions and determine their roles in health and disease. |
 Reika Tei (she/her) |
Molecular tools for editing and mapping membranes in live cells | Reika Tei’s research interests lie in protein engineering, chemical biology, and membrane biology. Her PhD work at Jeremy Baskin’s Lab at Cornell University focused on developing molecular tools to study lipid metabolism and signaling in mammalian cells. A highlight of this work was the development of the membrane editor, a tool designed to modify phospholipid head groups on the membrane of live cells. In her postdoctoral studies at Alice Ting’s Lab at Stanford University, she has been engineering synthetic receptors and enzymes for programmable cell behaviors and recording. A key achievement has been the development of PAGER (Programmable Antigen-gated G protein-coupled Engineered Receptor), a synthetic GPCR platform that couples the detection of soluble and surface antigens to diverse cellular responses. PAGER achieves this functionality through a modular design: a peptide inhibitor creates an auto-inhibited state, while a binder for the target antigen is strategically inserted to release this inhibition upon antigen binding. Building on the PAGER concept, she has also been developing proximity-labeling enzymes that are activated by a protein of interest. Looking ahead, she plans to establish her own lab to develop molecular tools that decipher and manipulate the complex and dynamic networks of membranes, proteins, and lipids. |
 Samuel (Channel) Thompson (any/they/them) |
Expanding protein engineering with proteins that fold and function in water-immiscible solvents | Samuel was raised in West Texas and graduated from the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, where they started working on functionalized polymer microgels with Zhibing Hu (University of North Texas). They then completed their undergraduate degree in Chemistry at MIT (Class of 2012), where they worked on protein engineering for imaging proteins in live cells with Alice Ting and on structural biology of CO₂-metabolizing enzyme complexes with Catherine Drennan. During a gap year at Osaka University through MISTI Japan, they developed cryo-EM analysis methods with Junichi Takagi and Kenji Iwasaki. They pursued computational protein design paired with high-throughput, cell-based screens during their Ph.D. with Tanja Kortemme at UCSF (2020), ultimately examining how protein homeostasis modulates in vivo enzyme fitness landscapes.
Currently, they are a postdoctoral researcher with a joint appointment between Polly Fordyce at Stanford and David Baker at the University of Washington, where they develop microfluidic and computational methods to engineer proteins that fold and function exclusively in organic solvents. Simultaneously, they are developing microfluidic methods for screening encapsulated in vitro reactions and cell growth chambers using commercial FACS machines. Their inter-lab collaborative projects include enzyme inhibitor screens, microbial and fungal selections, and targeted drug release. |
 Shanice Webster (she/her) |
Metabolites and Chemical Competition Drive Microbial Shifts in Plant Infection | Shanice Webster earned her BA in Biochemistry from Grinnell College and her Ph.D. from Dartmouth University. Her research journey began with a summer internship at Harvard University, where she investigated microbial interactions and bacterial signaling on cheeses. During her Ph.D., she delved deeper into bacterial signaling, studying surface sensing and biofilm formation in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Currently, Shanice is a postdoctoral researcher in Sheng Yang He’s lab at Duke University, focusing on (i) how pathogen invasion reshapes plant microbiota and impacts disease progression, and (ii) the biochemical mechanisms underlying microbiota homeostasis and plant health. She is a 2022 recipient of the Hanna Gray Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. |
Please contact Community and Professional Support Specialist Hallie Dowling-Francisco with any questions.
Previous Catalyst Symposia:
For information on previous years’ symposia please visit the links below: