Rojas Pierce Laboratory - North Carolina State University



	people Dr. Marcela Rojas-Pierce mrojasp@ncsu.edu I received my undergraduate degree at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. At the end of my program I completed a year of research under the direction of Drs Joe Tohme and Steve Beebe at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia. I obtained a Ph.D. in Plant Biology at the University of California-Riverside and my postdoctoral training was done in the laboratory of Dr. Natasha Raikhel from the Center of Plant Cell Biology (CEPCEB) at UC Riverside. I teach Plant Molecular Biology (PB780) and Cell Biology (PB414).


	Sang Won Han, PhD. student Shan7@ncsu.edu I have a B.Sc. degree in Biotechnology from Kangwon National University (Korea) and a M.Sc. in Agricultural Biotechnology from Seoul National University (Korea). In SNU, I worked on jasmonate-insensitive mutants in the laboratory of Dr Yang Do Choi. I am currently involved in the characterization of two tonoplast traffickiong mutants.

Irina Boico, PhD. Student

I joined the Lab as an undergraduate student in Spring 2010, my project at that time was to analyze the response of TIPs and other tonoplast markers to osmotic stress. I graduated from NCSU in May 2010 with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry with an Economics Minor. I started my PhD in Fall 2010 and my current research interests are the trafficking of High-affinity Phosphate Transporters (Pht1) in Arabidopsis thaliana.

	Jiamneg Zheng, PhD. Student I received my B.S. from Purdue University West Lafayette in 2009. I worked for a year as an undergraduate research assistant in Natalia Dudareva's Lab. My current research goal is to characterize two of the impaired trafficking to tonoplast mutants in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Undergraduate students
	Ian Manning Ian served in the South Dakota Ellsworth Air Force Base as an aerospace aircraft mechanic. After a few years as an environmental field technician in Texas, he moved to Raleigh and started his B.Sc. program in Plant Biology at NC State. Ian joined the lab in Spring 2011 and has been helping everyone with all kinds of stuff. He has also studied the effect of C834 on gravitropism and worked on cloning of TIP protein fusions. He is expected to graduate in Spring 2013.
PAST MEMBERS: Maria Fernanda Rodriguez Welsh, MSc., Efrain Rivera-Serrano, MSc. Tracey Leonardo, Synthetic Biology REU Student Elizabeth Flores, Synthetic Biology REU Student Wanda Figueroa, Synthetic Biology REU Student Jennifer Udom, Undergraduate student, NCSU. Elizabeth Burgess, Undergraduate student, NCSU Allison Vestal, Undergraduate student, NCSU Briana Taylor, Undergraduate student, NCSU.

Outreach

Research

People

Our lab is very active in outreach activities. We have hosted several High-school students and will soon start hosting 7th and 8th graders from a local Middle school in Raleigh. See more

Research in our lab is focused on targeting mechanisms for tonoplast proteins in Arabidopsis. We use chemical genetic approaches and have identified novel inhibitors of tonoplast protein trafficking.

I have a Biology degree from Universidad de los Andes and a Ph.D. in Plant Biology from the University of California-Riverside. I had postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Natasha Raikhel from the Center of Plant Cell Biology at UC Riverside.

ROJAS-PIERCE LABORATORY- North Carolina State University.