Aaron Engelhart, PhD Link to heading

Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development
420 Washington Ave SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Lab: 5-178 MCB / Office: 5-130 MCB
Office phone: 612-625-1950
Email: [email protected]
Github: https://github.com/aaronengelhart

Aaron Engelhart attended Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, where he worked with Ian R. Gould and studied the photochemistry of DNA-binding small molecule drugs. He also spent a summer in a UMN lab - in the laboratory of David M. Ferguson, working on organic synthesis of small molecule opioid ligands to develop safer analgesics. He earned his PhD at Georgia Tech with Nicholas V. Hud, working on self-assembling polymers, nucleic acids biophysics, and the origins of life. He was a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow with Jack W. Szostak at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he studied aptamers and ribozymes in lipid vesicles. He joined the University of Minnesota Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development (GCD) in 2016.

Joseph Heili, PhD Link to heading

Contact: [email protected]

Joseph Heili graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2011 with a B.S. in Biology and Plant Biology Minor. He spent four years working in the University of Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory until 2016 when he completed his M.S. in Biology and joined the lab as a researcher.

Joe earned his PhD in the Engelhart lab in 2025, working on new roles for RNA in synthetic biology. He showed a caged functional RNA that could be switched on by the addition of hydrogen peroxide and developed methods for carrying RNA and other payloads across liposome membranes. Joe is currently working on new RNA aptamer selections and developing new machine-learning-directed selection methodologies for rapid selections.

In his free time, Joseph enjoys snowboarding, brewing beer, volleyball, camping and carpentry.

Tanner Hoog, PhD Link to heading

Tanner earned his PhD in 2024 in the Engelhart lab, working on RNA in high-salt environments. Tanner showed that nucleic acid peroxidase enzymes could switch between different structures depending on their salt conditions. He went on to demonstrate that ribozymes and aptamers were uniquely stable in high-salt perchlorate rich solutions - model systems for prebiotic chemistry on Mars. He also demonstrated for the first time that RNA could promote formation of carbon-chlorine bonds.

He is currently exploring new cofactor-binding RNAs and characterizing the chemistry they can perform.

Anisha Shastri, MS Link to heading

Anisha Shastri is currently working on selection and characterization of cofactor binding aptamers.

PhD Student, BMBB

Paul Mroch Link to heading

Paul Mroch is currently working on biophysical and photochemical characterization of new fluorescent aptamers.

Undergraduate, neuroscience and biochemistry

Elisabeth Edgerton Link to heading

Lab manager; works on projects jointly with Adamala lab.

Evan Kalb, PhD Link to heading

Evan is a postdoc evolving the ribosome and tRNAs to enable robust translation of noncanonical amino acids.

Works jointly with Adamala lab.

Joshua Davisson Link to heading

Josh completed his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Montana State University before starting graduate school in 2022. During his undergraduate years, he worked in Dr. Susy Kohout’s lab on voltage sensing phosphatases. Josh is interested in noncanonical amino acid incorporation, flexizymes, ribosomes, organic synthesis, and cell free protein expression. He fills his free time with mountains and mimolette, hiking, havarti, and horses, baking, brie, and birding.

Works on projects jointly with Adamala lab.

Orion Venero Link to heading

Orion started in early 2019; since then, they have focused on the development of tools for synthetic cell engineering, rational RNA design, and using those synthetic biology techniques to elucidate viroid and plastid evolution. Orion joined the BMBB department as a PhD student in 2022.

Works jointly on projects with Adamala lab.

Dug and Hank Link to heading

High-throughput stick selections from naturally amplified libraries

Alumni Link to heading

Zach Parada, PhD Link to heading

Nathaniel Gaut, PhD Link to heading

Contact: [email protected]

Nathan received his B.S. in Human Biology at the University of California, San Diego in 2015. He began his research career as an undergraduate under the supervision of Dr. Huilin Zhou, studying mechanisms behind genomic instability of cancer cells. He later became inspired to pursue graduate programs with focus on synthetic biology and tool development.

In 2016, Nathan started graduate school at the University of Minnesota. He is working on developing synthetic minimal cells as a tool for a wide range of applications, from simplified models of cellular processes to highly modular bioreactors. In this research, he uses synthetic biology to re-engineer the machinery of life, to create new research tools and products. Currently, he is studying interactions between RNA binding proteins and ribozymes, enabling new ways of synthetic cell gene regulation as well as a combinatorial fusion system for engineering complex genetic network interactions in synthetic minimal cells, with applications in metabolic engineering. Works on projects jointly with Adamala lab.

Lauren Aufdembrink, PhD Link to heading

Brock Cash, MS Link to heading

Contact: [email protected]

Brock Cash graduated from Bethel University in 2012 with a B.S. in Chemistry. He spent his undergraduate years working for Life-Science Innovations helping research novel vaccines for the poultry industry, and, upon graduation, worked in Quality Control and as an Electrician until pursuing an M.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2015 at Saint Cloud State University. His thesis focused on using Yeast-Two Hybrid screens to discover and characterize putative protein partners of a suspected DNA licensing protein in Toxoplasma gondii, and graduated in late 2016. He recently finished an internship with Life-Science Innovations exploring the application of Fluid Bed Coating for vaccine development. In 2016, Brock joined the Adamala-Engelhart Lab to work on current projects. In his free time, Brock enjoys ordering himself and creating disorder around him (typically in the form of eating food), reading, music, and learning about history and its relation to geopolitics.

Jose Gomez-Garcia, PhD Link to heading

2016-2017

Current whereabouts: Medical School in Tennessee.

Kei Takahashi, PhD Link to heading

2017-2018

Liposomes and aptamers

Brent Heffron, PhD Link to heading

Contact: [email protected]

Brent’s research concerns the effect of abundant cellular species on the binding behavior of small molecules to nucleic acids, towards a better understanding of binding of drugs to nucleic acids in vivo. Works on projects jointly with Adamala lab.

Igor Popovich Link to heading

Igor is an international undergraduate student from Kazakhstan and has A.S. in Biology. Igor has been showing his interest in biology since high school. During his high school period, he participated in various scientific Olympiads starting from Regional competitions to International competitions that gave him a strong fundamental knowledge on biology. Today, he is working on B.S. in Genetics, Cell Bio and Development and a minor in Biochemistry at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Igor joined the lab on September 2017. In general, Igor is interested in investigation of therapies and drugs against worldwide diseases, synthetic biology, stem cells and cancer. Currently, Igor is studying the effects of abundant cellular components on nucleic acids’ interactions with small molecule ligands to get a better understanding of interactions of small molecule ligands with DNA and RNA and to improve an understanding of these biopolymers from both a basic science and medical (drug design) perspective.

Ali Baydoun Link to heading

Ali is a Lebanese-Australian International Student pursuing a B.S in Biology and a minor in Leadership. Research interests include: cell and disease biology, medical research and behavioral education research. Other interests include: sports, art, reading, music, and travel.

Brady Spano Link to heading

I am working on my B.S. in Biology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and expected graduation is spring 2019. After graduation, I am unclear of my career path. My undergraduate research career started working alongside Brock Cash beginning January 2018. Some of my research interests include; medical research, biosynthetic research, and evolutionary biology. In my free time, I enjoy music, drumming, computers, video games, travel, and working out.

Worked on projects jointly with the Adamala lab.

Deepanjan Panda, PhD Link to heading

Organic synthesis