Fraser Research Group

Rahul Basu, Ph.D.

HHMI Research Specialist II 
University of Texas Health San Antonio
Rahul was a postdoctoral fellow under the Rocky Mountain Lab (RML) Bethesda (Rocky-Beth) collaborative program from 2017-2022. He received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata, India where his project was directed to understand the changes in neuroglial interaction in a murine coronavirus infection model. In 2017, he joined Dr. Karin Peterson’s Neuroimmunology Section at RML to study the age-related changes in blood-brain barrier permeability that contribute to La Crosse virus (bunyavirus) susceptibility in children. Through the Rocky-Beth program, he transitioned to the Signaling Systems Section in 2019 to perform focused genetic screening and host-factor targeting in La Crosse virus infection. This study was published in Nature Communications.

Makheni Jean Pierre

Graduate Student, Eric Dang lab
NIH-Georgetown University Partnership Program
Makheni was a postbaccalaureate fellow in the Signaling Systems Section from 2020-2022, funded through the NIH Undergraduate Scholarship Program (UGSP). He obtained his associate degree in science from Queensborough Community College (QCC New York) and then transferred to Stony Brook University to complete his bachelor’s in biology. His interest lay in the intracellular signaling processes in macrophages in response to activation by pathogens. He worked on a target protein discovered in a genetic screen that regulates the expression of key genes involved in the TLR4 pathway in macrophages in order to control the degree of immune response in certain situations.

Sam Katz, Ph.D.

Senior Scientist
Verily Biosciences
Sam was a graduate student in the NIH-OxCam program from 2016-2020 and then remained in the Signaling Systems Section as a postdoctoral fellow until 2022. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2020 (co-supervised by Dr. Fraser and Professor Clare Bryant). As a graduate student, Sam built the SIGNAL platform for prioritizing candidates from high-throughput studies. He then focused on characterizing how post-translation modifications, such as alternative splicing, regulate the inflammatory response.

Camille Lake, Ph.D.

Senior Bioinformatics Data Scientist
Deloitte Consulting, LLP
Camille Lake was a rotating fellow in the Signaling Systems Section when she was part of NIAID’s Emerging Leaders in Data Science Fellowship program from 2021-2022. She spent her upbringing in the hills of Northern California and eventually moved to Santa Barbara, where she got her college degree and discovered her love of molecular biology. She moved to Bethesda, MD, to pursue her Ph.D. in infectious diseases and immunology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, where she graduated in 2021. She utilized her immunology foundation and fascination with data science to fuel her research, which ranged from determining the underpinnings of molecular mimicry in SARS-CoV-2 sequelae to utilizing machine learning algorithms to unlock the secrets of RNA regulation.

Jonathan Liang, Ph.D.

Medical Intern 
Yale University Medical School
Jonathan is an M.D./Ph.D. student who completed his graduate work in the Signaling Systems Section (SSS) in 2022 through the NIH-OxCam Scholars Program. He is a Washington, DC, area native, having lived near NIH since middle school. After undergraduate studies at Yale University in New Haven, CT, he completed a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge before beginning his M.D./Ph.D. jointly between the Yale School of Medicine, the NIH, and the University of Cambridge. His research in the SSS sought to understand the molecular pathways that allow saturated fatty acids to trigger the NLRP3 inflammasome, an interaction that may contribute to inflammation in diseases such as atherosclerosis and fatty liver disease (recently reviewed in Trends in Immunology). His major ongoing clinical interest is in pediatrics.