Arpita Bharadwaj
Senior Research Associate
Email: bharadwa@ohsu.edu

Arpita graduated from Creighton University School of Medicine with a Ph.D. in Immunology. She investigated the phenotype of dendritic cells in the lungs after treatment of bronchial asthma with Flt3 ligand. Arpita worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Mt. Sinai Medical Center where her research involved identifying mechanisms that result in factor IX tolerance following gene therapy with adeno-associated viral serotype-1 vector. In her second postdoctoral fellowship, in the laboratory of Justine Smith at Oregon Health & Science University, she studied the role of immune cells in the inflammation of the eyes. She joined the Baconguis lab in February 2014 to work on the structure and function of sodium channels.

James Cahill
Research Assistant 2
Email: cahillja@ohsu.edu

James earned his B.A. in Chemistry from Reed College, during which time he built computational models mapping the kinetics of racemization of novel chiral propeller molecules. In 2018 he joined the lab of Dr. Caroline Enns at OHSU, studying the contributions of Transferrin Receptor II (TFrII) mutations on the development of hemochromatosis in murine models. In 2019 he moved to the lab of Dr. Matt Whorton in the Vollum Institute, where he focused on the structural and functional characterization of nucleotide-sugar transports. As of 2020 he continues this work under the mentorship of Dr. Isabelle Baconguis.

Kimberly Hartfield
Postdoctoral Fellow
Email: hartfiel@ohsu.edu

Kimberly was awarded a Ph.D. from The Scripps Research Institute for her work in structural biology and biophysics. Her dissertation research focused on crystallographic characterization of redox-active metalloproteins cytochrome P450 and cytochrome c oxidase under the supervision of Dr. C. David Stout. She then engaged in postdoctoral research at the Vollum Institute in the laboratory of Dr. Matt Whorton, studying the structure of the secondary-messenger signaling protein adenylyl cyclase using single-particle cryo-electron microscopy. She joined the Baconguis lab in 2020, where she works on structural–functional characterization of nucleotide-sugar transporters.

Alexandra Houser
Graduate Student
Email: housera@ohsu.edu

Alex received her B.S. in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz. While there she studied the autoregulation of the motor protein Kinesin under the mentorship of Dr. William Saxton. Following her undergraduate work, she spent two years working in Dr. David Bilder’s lab at the University of California Berkeley. Her research focused on the glycosylation of the Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptor in a Drosophila melanogaster tumor model. Alex started in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at OHSU in September 2018. She joined the Baconguis Lab in September 2019 and is focusing on ENaC in the nervous system for her doctoral thesis.

Rich Posert
Graduate Student
Email: posert@ohsu.edu

Rich earned his B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology just across the river at Reed College in 2015. He spent two years working on ion channel structure-function in Matt Whorton's lab at the Vollum Institute as a research assistant. Rich then joined OHSU's Program in Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (PMCB) in 2017 and the Baconguis lab in April 2018 to study the structure of ENaC in complex with regulatory proteins. When he's not in lab he can be found riding his bike or playing with his cat, Nooch.