News
May 2025
Congratulations to Wilfred for winning the 2024-2025 School of Chemical Sciences Teaching Award.
Congratulations to Wilfred for winning the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences at Rice University.
Congratulations to group alumnus Weixin Tang for receiving a 2025 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award!
Congratulations to Pelham Kogut for passing his Biochemistry preliminary exam!
Congratulations to Garrett Barksdale for winning the 2025 Michael Glaser Undergraduate Service Award!
Congratulations to Garrett for earning his BS this Spring and starting his graduate studies in the Fall at the University of Wisconsin!
Congratulations to Ivan Anterola for earning his BS this Spring and starting his graduate studies in the Fall at the University of Michigan!
April 2025
Congratulations to former Biochemistry graduate student Lainey Liang for winning the 2024 Anne A. Johnson Award!
March 2025
New paper in PNAS: Congratulations to Dr. Josseline Ramos-Figueroa and Dr. Haoqian Liang.
Congratulations to graduate student David Freytag for receiving the Sheldon G. Shore Inorganic Chemistry Graduate Student Travel Award!
Congratulations to postdoc, Josseline Ramos-Figueroa, for winning the Anuj Khandelwal Memorial Travel Award!
Congratulations to Dr. Yue Yu for his final defense! Yue will be working as a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Feng Zhang’s lab at MIT.
February 2025
Congratulations to group alumnus Weixin Tang for receiving a Sloan fellowship!
Congratulations to group alumnus Juan Velasquez for receiving the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Young Alumni Award!
Congratulations to graduate student Enleyona Weir for winning a best poster award at the SIMB meeting in San Diego!
January 2025
New paper in Organic Letters: Congratulations to Youran Luo.
Welcome undergraduate students, Yifei Hu and Jesse Wald to the lab!
December 2024
Welcome graduate students, Frank Zhang, Shaoyuan Guo, Gizem Ozturk and Natalie King to the lab!
November 2024
New paper in ACS Catalysis: Congratulations to Dr. Emily Desormeaux and Garrett Barksdale.
Congratulations to graduate student Yue Yu for winning a presentation award at the Allerton Conference!
October 2024
Congratulations to Shekhar Padhi for receiving Marvel Voorhees Postdoc Award!
Congratulations to Dr. Dinh Nguyen for his final defense! Dinh will be working as a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Michael Laub’s lab at MIT.
Congratulations to Josseline Ramos-Figueroa for receiving the poster prize award at the 2nd International RiPPs Conference!
Congratulations to graduate students Jeff Chen, David Freytag, and Tony Zhang for having finished their preliminary examinations!
Congratulations to graduate student Youran Luo for receiving the Fuson Travel Award!
September 2024
New paper in Biochemistry: Congratulations to Dr. Haoqian Liang and Youran Luo.
New paper in RCS Chemical Biology: Congratulations to Dr. Ryan Moreira, Yi Yang, and Youran Luo.
Congratulations to graduate student, Ceilia Leso, for making the list of Teachers Ranked as Excellent Spring 2024! She received a rating of Outstanding!
Congratulations to Wilfred for winning the ACS Alfred Bader Award in Bioinorganic or Bioorganic Chemistry!
July 2024
New paper in ACS Omega: Congratulations to Youran Luo.
June 2024
New paper in Chemical Communications: Congratulations to Dr. Tung Le, Rachel Martini and Dr. Subhanip Biswas.
New paper in Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol.: Congratulations to Jeff Chen.
New paper in ACS Central Science: Congratulations to Dr. Yue Yu.
New paper in ACS Synthetic Biology: Congratulations to Dr. Sara M. Eslami.
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Yao Ouyang, who is coming from Todd Hyster’s lab!
Several former group members achieved new milestones in their careers. Neha Garg (Georgia Tech) and Jeella Acedo (Mount Royal University) were awarded tenure, Rob Cichillo (SVP R&D Oerth Bio, Durham, NC), Subha Mukherjee (Scientific Director at Eli Lilly, Indianapolis), Abraham Wang (Bullseye Bio) and Autumn Frerk (MicroMGx) took new positions in industry, and Zhengan Zhang started as faculty member at Shandong University. Congratulations!
May 2024
New paper in JACS: Congratulations to Dr. Josseline Ramos-Figueroa.
April 2024
Congratulations to Dr. Haoqian “Lainey” Liang for her final defense! Lainey will be working at Roche in Pleasanton, California.
New paper in ACS Central Science: Congratulations to Dr. Dinh T. Nguyen.
March 2024
Congratulations to WAV undergrads Joey and Yi for being awarded undergraduate research scholarships from the Department of Chemistry!
New paper in ACS Catalysis: Congratulations to Dr. Dinh T. Nguyen.
January 2024
Congratulations to Dr. Emily Desormeaux for her final defense!
New paper in Analytical Chemistry: Congratulations to Youran Luo.
December 2023
Congratulations to Dr. Sara Eslami for her final defense! Sara will be working at Just-Evotec Biologics in Seattle.
Welcome graduate students Ceilia Leso and Pelham Kogut to the lab!
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Songyi Xue to the lab!
New paper in ACS Bio & Med Chem Au: Congratulation to Sara M. Eslami.
November 2023
Congratulations to Josseline and Yue for being selected for flash talks at the 2024 Enzyme Mechanisms Conference (EMC) in Florida!
October 2023
Congratulations to Dinh Nguyen for receiving the Fuson Travel Award!
Welcome graduate student Vanessa Reyes Lopez to the lab!
August 2023
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Lide Cha to the lab!
Congratulations to Dr. Tung Le for his final defense! Tung will be moving to UC Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher.
July 2023
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Yuqing Li to the lab!
June 2023
Welcome undergraduate Natalie King to the lab! Natalie is from Monmouth College, joining us as part of the Summer Snyder Scholars program.
The van der Donk lab is traveling to the Indiana Dunes State Park area for a three-day lab retreat. Have fun!
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Chandrashekhar Padhi to the lab!
March 2023
Congratulations to Wilfred and Jeff for making the Fall 2022 "List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students."
Congratulations to Dr. Raymond Sarsikan for his final defense! Ray will be working at Amgen in California.
Congratulations to Dr. Richard Ayikpoe, he accepted a position at Merck in New Jersey!
New paper in ACS Central Science: Congratulations to Dr. Richard Ayikpoe.
New paper in Chemical Science: Congratulations to Dr. Hyunji Lee.
January 2023
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Ryan Moerira to the lab!
New paper in PNAS: Congratulations to Dr. Shi Liu and Youran Luo.
New paper in Chemical Communications: Congratulations to Dr. Raymond Sarksian.
November 2022
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Jingqi Chen to the lab!
October 2022
Welcome Chemistry graduate students Jeff Chen, David Freytag, and Tony Zhang to the lab!
New paper in Nature Communications: Congratulations to Dr. Richard S. Ayikpoe.
September 2022
Congratulations to Dr. Hyunji Lee, she accepted a faculty position at Kyungsun University in South Korea!
August 2022
Congratulations to Dr. Page Daniels for her final defense! Page will be working at Primordial Genetics in California.
New paper in ACS Chemical Biology: Congratulations to Haoqian Liang.
New paper in ACS Chemical Biology: Congratulations to Raymond Sarksian.
July 2022
With Wilfred as project lead, the WAV lab together with the Wu, Stadtmeuller, Mehta, and Guthmiller labs, received a $9.5 million NIH grant for the Emerging Pathogens Initiative to study the avian response to influenza!
Congratulations to Dr. Chunyu “Layla” Wu for her final defense! Layla will be working at Merck in New Jersey.
Congratulations to Dr. Constantin Giurgiu, he accepted a job at Evozyne in Illinois!
New paper in PNAS: Congratulations to Yue Yu
June 2022
Congratulations to Dr. Max Simon for his final defense! Max will be working at LanzaTech in Illinois.
New paper in JACS: Congratulations to Dinh T. Nguyen.
New paper in Biochemistry: Congratulations to Page N. Daniels.
April 2022
Congratulations to Alexis Lower for winning the NSF-GRFP!
New paper in Annual Review of Biochemistry: Congratulations to Dr. Hyunji Lee.
New paper in JACS: Congratulations to Raymond Sarksian.
January 2022
Congratulations to Wilfred for planning a successful Enzyme and Mechanisms Conference 2022!
November 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Imran Rahman for his final defense! Imran accepted a position at Capsida in California.
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Josseline Ramos Figueroa to the lab!
New paper in Nature Chemistry: Congratulations to Page N. Daniels and Dr. Hyunji Lee.
New paper in JACS: Congratulations to Tung Le.
October 2021
Welcome Chemistry graduate students Enleyona Weir and Anna Conley to the lab!
Congratulations to Dr. Daisuke Fujinami on accepting a postdoctoral researcher position at University of Tokyo!
July 2021
Welcome postdoctoral researcher Dr. Constantin Giurgiu to the lab!
Welcome Chemistry graduate student Youran Luo to the lab!
New paper in ACS Infectious Diseases: Congratulations to Imran R. Rahman.
New paper in ACS infectious Disease: Congratulations to Subhanip Biswas and Chunyu Wu.
New paper in ACS Chemical Biology: Congratulations to Ian R. Bothwell.
New paper in PNAS: Congratulations to Max A. Simon.
New paper in Biochemistry: Congratulations to Martin I. McLaughlin.
New paper in Current Opinion in Biotechnology: Congratulations to Chunyu Wu.
April 2021
Congratulations to Wilfred for being elected to the National Academy of Sciences!
Welcome visiting scientist Dr. Javier Murciano-Calles to the lab!
New paper in Cell: Congratulations to KuanYu Lai.
New paper in Trends in Chemistry: Congratulations to Tung Le.
Welcome Biochemistry graduate student Rachel Martini to the lab!
March 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Martin McLaughlin for his final defense! Martin will be moving to Stanford University as a postdoctoral researcher.
October 2020
Welcome Chemistry graduate student Alexis Lower to the lab!