OUR TEAM

AUDRONE (AUDREY) LAPINAITE
Principal Investigator
Assistant Professor
alapinai[at]hs.uci.edu

Audrey is an Assistant Professor at the University of California Irvine, School of Medicine, with joint appointments in Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, and Biological Chemistry. She is also a member of the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute and the Robert M. Brunson Center for Translational Vision Research. Her research focuses on the structural and mechanistic basis of genome and RNA editing systems, with the goal of engineering next-generation precision therapeutics for genetic diseases. She is a recipient of the Athalie R. Clarke Achievement Award for Medical Research and leads an interdisciplinary team advancing molecular technologies for treating genetic ocular disorders.
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 ASU in 2020.

Aashish Shivkumar
Postdoctoral Fellow

shivkuma[at]hs.uci.edu

Aashish graduated with a B.Tech in Pharmaceutical Technology from Anna University, Chennai in 2017, followed by an MS in Chemistry from UC San Diego in 2019 and a PhD in Chemistry and Biochemistry from UCSD in 2024 under the mentorship of Prof. Jerry Yang. He joined the Lapinaite lab at UC Irvine in 2025. His research interests include protein engineering, genome editing technologies, and developing therapeutic applications for treating genetic 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.

Madeleine King
Graduate Student

madelk1@hs.uci.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.

Ieva Savickytė
Graduate Student

isavicky[at]uci.edu

Ieva graduated with a MSc in Life Sciences in 2019 from Leiden University, The Netherlands, and with a BSc in Genetics in 2016 from Vilnius University, Lithuania. She is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at UC Irvine. Her research is focused on understanding molecular underpinnings of RNA modifications.

Jason Leung
Undergraduate Student

jleung16[at]uci.edu

Jason is currently a second year Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate at UCI. His research interests includes gene editing and its applications in advancing biomedical research. He is currently working on improving DNA base editors. He wants to develop precise and efficient tools to correct genetic mutations while exploring their therapeutic potentials.

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.