PEOPLE:

James Ferrell. James Ferrell was born in Gary Indiana and raised in Chicago and Pittsburgh. He was an undergraduate at Williams College, where he majored in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics, and graduated in 1976. For his undergraduate thesis he worked with David A. Park on nonlinear dynamics and chaos in the Hénon-Heiles model of stars in an axisymmetrical galactic potential. After graduating he came west to Stanford for medical school and graduate school. His did his Ph.D. thesis in Chemistry with Wray H. Huestis, working on cell shape control and phosphoinositide metabolism in human erythrocytes. He received his Ph.D. in 1984 and his M.D. in 1986. He then moved to UC Berkeley for postdoctoral studies with G. Steven Martin on tyrosine-specific protein phosphorylation in human platelets, mammalian cell lines, and Xenopus laevis oocytes, eggs, and embryos.

He began his independent career in the Dept. of Zoology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1990. He moved to the Dept. of Pharmacology at Stanford University School of Medicine in 1992. The Department ultimately became the Dept. of Chemical and Systems Biology, which he chaired from its inception in 2006 until 2011. Currently he is Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology, Professor of Biochemistry, and Co-Director (with Tobias Meyer) of the Stanford Center for Systems Biology.

Xianrui Cheng. Xianrui Cheng was born and raised in Hunan, a south-central Chinese province located on the path of Chang Jiang, the third longest river in the world. He then moved north to attend Tianjin University, earning a bachelor's degree in Bioengineering in 2005. He came to the US in 2006 to pursue a Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at Duke University, working with physicist Joshua Socolar and developmental biologist David McClay on the systems biology of sea urchin embryonic development (details here and here). His interest in systems biology led him to the Ferrell lab, where he is carrying out his postdoctoral research on the spatial propagation of apoptosis using Xenopus laevis egg extracts and oocytes. In his spare time he dabbles in gymnastics, photography, cooking and music.

Julia Kamenz. Julia Kamenz grew up in Berlin, but then left the city in 2003 to study Biochemistry in the picturesque town of Tuebingen. For her Diploma thesis she spend a year in Frank Uhlmann’s lab at the London Research Institute, Cancer Research UK, where she investigated the functional importance of the ATPase cycle of the two SMC subunits of the Condensin complex in budding yeast. In 2009 she joined Silke Hauf’s group at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society as a Ph.D. student. There she became interested in how events during the metaphase to anaphase transition are coordinated in time in order to ensure faithful segregation of sister chromatids. She received a fellowship of the Boehringer Ingelheim Funds for this project and defended her PhD thesis in February 2015 with highest honors. In March 2015 she started in the Ferrell lab, where she continues to investigate the determinants of temporal order during mitotic exit using experimental and computational approaches. When she is not in the lab, she enjoys being outdoors, whether it is skiing in the winter or hiking, biking or sailing during the long Californian summer.

Minjung Kang. Minjung was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. She came to the U.S. for college in 2003 and studied biology at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2009, she moved to New York and trained with Kat Hadjantonakis, where she investigated the roles of FGF signaling in the development of the pre-implantation mouse embryo. She graduated in October 2016 and came to Stanford in 2017. In the Ferrell Lab, Min focuses on the dynamics of cell cycle proteins in mammalian cells. Min enjoys cooking (specialty in Korean food) and movies.

 

Andreas Meyerhans. Andreas was born in Pinneberg, a small town close to Hamburg in Germany. He studied Chemistry at Hamburg University and moved to the Biotechnology Institute GBF in Braunschweig to perform his PhD on translation control in E. coli under the supervision of Ronald Frank and John Collins. In 1988, he went to the Institute Pasteur in Paris for a post-doc with Simon Wain-Hobson, starting to apply the newly discovered PCR technology for studying HIV variation. After a scientifically most exciting 2.5 years, he started his own laboratory in the Virology Department of Otto Haller at the University of Freiburg in 1990 and obtained a full Professorship in Virology at the University of the Saarland in 1998. Since 2010 he is ICREA Research Professor at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain. His main research interests are to decipher fundamental features of virus/host organism relationships and to identify novel strategies to control virus-induced pathogenesis. Over the summer 2017, he is taking a short-term sabbatical stay in the Ferrell lab to learn about fate decisions in complex systems. Privately, he enjoys his large family, sport, music, and all kinds of tasty food and wines.

Connie Phong. Connie Phong was born and raised in the port city of Long Beach, California. She studied Computational and Mathematical Sciences at Stanford University and Biomathematics at UCLA before stumbling into the perfect fit in systems biology. She trained with Mike Rust at the University of Chicago, and helped to elucidate how negative feedback is actuated in the cyanobacterial KaiABC circadian oscillator. She graduated in August 2016. Connie joined the Ferrell Lab to study the robustness of cell cycle regulatory systems. Connie enjoys music, baking, rowing, and plotting future expeditions to Antarctica.

 

DOG:

Scout. At about 4 months of age Scout was found wandering on Page Mill Road in Los Altos Hills and was taken in by Palo Alto Animal Services. JF saw her profile online while lecturing in Buenos Aires, and adopted her on the way home from SFO.

Scout's lab responsibilities include psychological counseling and shedding. She enjoys snoozing on the couch in Jim's office, and likes nothing more than visiting with all her Stanford friends every day.

Scout is a good doggie. She is a friend to all and a sister to every other dog.

 

ALUMNI:

Name	Position and Approx. Vintage	Current Position
Graham Anderson	Grad student and postdoc, 2007-2017	Process Engineer, Zymergen, Emeryville CA
Christoph Bagowski	Postdoc, 1999-2002	Head of Molecular Genetics, Pränatal-Medizin München, Germany
Alex Bazarov	Postdoc, 1999-2002	Director of Cell Engineering, CHO Plus
Ramesh Bhatt	Grad student, 1993-2000	Executive Director, Rigel Pharmaceuticals
David Byron	Tech, 1999-2001	Family Practice Physician, Tuscon AZ
Jeremy Chang	Grad student, 2007-2013	Postdoc, Krogan lab, UCSF
Tzu-Chi Chen	Visiting grad student, 2013-2014	Postdoc, Huang lab, National Yang-Ming University
Yoon Sup Choi	Visiting grad student, 2007-2008	Res. Asst. Professor, Seoul National University Hospital
Szu-yi (Sam) Chou	Grad student, 1991-1997	President and CEO, Viogene-Biotek
Delquin Gong	Grad student, 2002-2008	Development Scientist, Bio-Rad
Lendert Gelens	Postdoc, 2013-2016	Asst. Professor, University of Leuven, Belgium
Sherril Green	Fellow, 1997-2002	Professor and Chair of Comparative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine
Tom Guadagno	Postdoc, 1995-1999	Science Teacher, Newton County Day School
Sang Hoon Ha	Postdoc, 2010-2017	Asst. Professor, Chonbuk National University, Korea
Dave Hendrickson	Grad student, 2002-2009	Associate Scientist, Calico
Kuang-Ming Hsiao	Grad student, 1991-1992	Professor, Life Science, National Chung Cheng University
Chi-Ying Frederick Huang	Postdoc, 1994-1998	Professor and Chair, Inst. of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, National Yang-Ming University
Narae Hwang	Visiting grad student, 2003	Medical Intern, Seoul Korea
Sun Young Kim	Postdoc, 2002-2010	Program Manager, SPARK Translational Research Program, Stanford
Chung Han Lee	Undergrad, 1998-2001	Postdoc, Hsieh lab, MSKCC
Tek Hyung Lee	Postdoc, 2014-2017	Yung lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Thomas Leung	Undergrad, 1997-1998	Asst. Professor of Dermatology, University of Pennsylvania
Xuedong Liu	Sabbatical visitor, 2009-2010	Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder
Eric Machleder	Grad student, 1996-1998	Software Architect, Walmart Global eCommerce
Alisa Moskaleva	Grad student, 2010-2015	Field Application Scientist, Molecular Devices
Jason Myers	Grad student, 1999-2005	Chief Scientific Officer, Enzymatics
Michele Nelson	Grad student, 1996-1998	Research Program Officer Associate, University of Michigan, Grand Rapids
Sam Pearlman	Grad student, 2005-2012	Senior Software Engineer, TeselaGen Biotechnology
Eva Petschnigg	Undergrad and visiting medical student	Physician, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, MA
Joe Pomerening	Postdoc, 2000-2006	AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow, U.S. Department of Energy
Andy Poon	Grad student, 2004-2012	Product Analytics Manager, Rakuten
Diana Ríos-Cardona	Grad student, 2003-2009	Agriculture Specialist, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Michal Ronen	Postdoc, 2003-2005	Algorithms Team Leader, Oridion, Jerusalem, Israel
Marsha Rosner	Sabbatical visitor, 2009-2010	Charles B. Huggins Professor and Chair, Ben May Dept. for Cancer Research, University of Chicago
Mauro Ruffy	Undergrad, 1995-1996	ENT Physician, San Jose Medical Group
Silvia Santos	Postdoc, 2008-2013	Asst. Professor, Imperial College London
Zach Serber	Postdoc, 2003-2007	Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Zymergen, Inc.
Shian-Jiun Shih	Postdoc, 1991-1993	Section Head, Translational Medicine Research Center, Merck Sharp & Dohme
Mike Sohaskey	Grad student, 1993-2000	Co-Founder, Chief Racing Officer, RaceRaves LLC
Sarah Trosin	Grad student, 2008-2016	Oncology Disease Area Manager, Oncology Resource Group
Nikki Trunnell	Grad student, 2003-2010	Therapy Area Director, Oncology Resource Group
Tony Tsai	Grad student, 2007-2013	Postdoc, Megason lab, Harvard Medical School
Jeff Ubersax	Postdoc, 2004-2008	Vice President of Research and Development, Amyris Biotechnologies
Sarah Walter	Grad student, 1993-2000	Senior Director, Preclinical Development and Scientific Affairs, Labrys Biologics, Inc.
Joanne Westendorf	Postdoc, 1997-2001	CPA, Patent Agent
Xiao Min Wang (Schebye)	Postdoc, 1997-2001	Senior Research Investigator, Cancer Immunotherapy Discovery, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Polly Wong	Grad student, 1993-1999	Director of Regulatory Affairs, Genentech Inc.
Jinger Xie	Tech, 1993-1994	Scientist, Bayer Health Care
Wen Xiong	Postdoc, 1999-2003	Investigator III, Novartis, Shanghai
Qiong Yang	Postdoc, 2008-2013	Asst. Professor of Biophysics, University of Michigan
John Yoon	Undergrad and tech, 1997-2001	Neuroradiologist, Cottage Center for Advanced Imaging, Santa Barbara CA
Jianbo Yue	Postdoc, 2000-2006	Assoc. Prof. of Biomedical Sciences, City University of Hong Kong