Meet Alumni

Laura Cataldi

Hi there! My name is Laura Cataldi, and back in my undergraduate days I was a student leader of the CLFS Peer Mentor Program. I graduated from the University of Maryland in 2006 with a BA in English and a BS in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics. I currently live in Buffalo, New York where I am attending my first year of medical school at the University at Buffalo. If anyone wants more information about applying to and attending medical school or just wants to chat about the beauty of hockey and good chicken wings, feel free to contact me… Go Terps!!!

Bryan Dickinson

I am currently a Chemical Biology graduate student (Ph.D. candidate) at UC-Berkeley in the Chemistry Department. I am currently rotating in several labs in as I choose a thesis adviser and topic. My first project here was synthesizing a small molecule to be used for bioorthogonal metabolic labeling of cellular macromolecules, especially the glycoproteins and glycolipids that decorate cell surfaces. I am now beginning a project dealing with soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC), which catalyzes the conversion of GTP to the second messenger molecule cyclic GMP (cGMP). I am hoping to probe the selectivity of heme-binding domains to oxygen or NO, and ultimately develop a set of rules determining the binding specificity.

Mark Johnson

I am a first year graduate student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Medical School in the Immunology/Microbiology program. Right now I am taking classes and doing my first rotation in a lab which investigates HIV. Specifically, I am working on a project concerning a region of the HIV genome known as V3. I am using a phage library to characterize the amino acid sequence of various antibodies which bind to V3, and have the potential to provide information on how the immune system responds to HIV variability in this region and what amino acids in this region are important to HIV survival. I am also planning on doing two other rotations this year, which investigate auto-immunity in Lupus and type I diabetes respectively.

Contact information for the Peer Mentors:
1317 Symons Hall
E-Mail: peermentorsumd@gmail.com