OUR TEAM

AUDRONE (AUDREY) LAPINAITE
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor
Audrone.Lapinaite[at]asu.edu

Audrey is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Arizona State University.
She earned her BSc and MSc in biochemistry from Vilnius University in 2007 and 2009, where she trained with Prof. Saulius Klimasauskas and her PhD in structural biology from the EMBL, Heidelberg in 2013, under the mentorship of Prof. Teresa Carlomagno. In 2015 she moved to the University of California, Berkeley as an HFSP postdoctoral fellow, were she worked under the mentorship of Prof. Jennifer Doudna and Prof. Jamie Cate. She started her independent research group at the School of Molecular Sciences and the Biodesign Institute's Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center at ASU in 2020.

She has long been interested in understanding the biology of DNA and RNA modifications in prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of nucleic acid-protein interactions. Her work has been published in the journals Nature and Science.
Now her group focuses on elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying the functional role of RNA-protein interactions and post-transcriptional RNA processing in neurons in normal and pathological states using state-of-art structural (cryoEM, NMR, X-ray crystallography) and molecular biology approaches, including CRISPR-Cas mediated DNA and RNA targeting technologies. Her lab is also interested in characterizing and harnessing bacterial defense systems (CRISPR-Cas, restriction-modification etc.) for biotechnological and therapeutic applications.

Kayla Perry
Graduate Student

Kaylaperry[at]asu.edu

Kayla graduated with a BS in Biology-Chemistry in 2020 from Point Loma Nazarene University and is working towards a Ph.D. in biochemistry. She is interested in studying RNA modifications and their regulation. Kayla’s work is focused on studying a particular methyltransferase complex and its interactions with RNA in order to glean more understanding on cell differentiation and diseases.

Mitchell McAndrew
Graduate Student

Mmcandr2[at]asu.edu

Mitchell graduated with a BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with a minor in Spanish in 2019 from Cornell College and is currently working on his doctorate in biochemistry at Arizona State University. His research interests include DNA base editors and advancing biotechnology for targeted genome editing. Mitchell’s current work is focused on developing an improved site-specific adenosine deaminase for genomic base editing to be used in laboratory and therapeutic applications.

Xiaoyu (Lydia) Chen
Graduate Student

xchen272[at]asu.edu

Xiaoyu (Lydia) Chen graduated with a BS in Biochemistry (Medicinal Chemistry) in 2019 from Arizona State University and is currently working towards a Ph.D still in Biochemistry. She is interested in understanding molecular mechanisms of bacterial immune systems. Specifically, Lydia is focusing on the structural and biochemical characterization of the phage-defense-associated proteins. The obtained knowledge will be used to design novel biotechnological tools.

Madeleine King
Graduate Student

mbking5[at]asu.edu

Madeleine graduated with a BS in Biology with a minor in Biochemistry from Loyola Marymount University and is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Biochemistry. She is interested in precision genome editing for treating diseases and biotechnological applications as well as understanding the structure-function relationship of useful proteins.

Archana Kikla
Graduate Student

akikla[at]asu.edu

Archana graduated with a BS in Genetics and a minor in Biotechnology in 2019 from Purdue University and is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Biological Design. She is interested in advancing targeted genome editing for therapeutic applications.

Charitha Rajapakse
Graduate Student

crajapak[at]asu.edu

Charitha graduated with a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Biochemistry. Charitha is co-advised by Nicholas Stephanopoulos. He is research is focused in advancing precision genome editing for biomedical applications

Jack Kostrinsky
Undergraduate Student

Jkostrin[at]asu.edu

Jack graduated in 2020 from Palo Verde High School in Las Vegas and is working towards a Bachelor’s of Science in Biomedical Engineering. He is interested in understanding molecular basis of recently discovered bacterial immune systems to harness them for biotechnological and biomedical applications.

MESKA 2.0
Visiting Scientist

Meska is a visiting scientist at Lapinaite lab. He is still in pursuit of his BSc degree in biochemistry. His research is focused on the role of RNA in the quality of honey.

In his free time he likes to read. Meska is very patient listener and his favorite honey is Orange Blossom.

WE ARE HIRING

We’re actively recruiting undergrads, graduate students, postdocs, and research technicians! Please email Audrey if you’re interested to learn more about the lab or the research.