Postdoctoral Fellows

After finishing my Doctoral Research at Prof. Anup Kumar Misra Lab, (Bose Institute, Kolkata, India) I moved to Prof. Clay S. Bennett Lab (Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA) as a Post-Doctoral Research fellow and gained lot of experience about reagent controlled deoxy sugar glycosylation. Now here, I am to explore myself more about oligosaccharide synthesis of Streptococcus suis serotype 2 CPS and its application as glycoconjugate.

Dr. Pei-Jhen Li received her B.Sc. from National Chiayi University in 2013 and obtained her Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Chun- Cheng Lin at National Tsing Hua University in 2019. Her Ph.D. research focused on the carbohydrate probes of lectins modification and receptor labeling studies of cell membranes. She joined Dr. Lowary’s group as a postdoctoral fellow in 2019. Her research focused on the synthesis of capsular polysaccharide (CPS)-based vaccines against Streptococcus suis serotype 2.

Dr. Mohammad Tarique Anwar obtained his Master’s in Medicinal chemistry from NIPER-Kolkata (India) in 2013. Later, he joined PhD in Dr. Chun-Cheng Lin’s group at National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan). His PhD research focused on the development of an efficient route for chemoenzymatic synthesis of complex type N-glycans and their mimics. In 2019, he joined Dr. Lowary’s group as a postdoctoral fellow. His research is focused on chemoenzymatic synthesis of extended O-Polysaccharide found in Klebsiella pneumoniae O2a.

Teddy grew up in Lagos Nigeria. He obtained his Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm) and MSc degrees from the University of Lagos where he studied Pharmacy and then Pharmaceutical & Medicinal Chemistry. In 2015, he began doctoral studies under the direction of Prof. Biao Yu at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), China. The highlight of his PhD research is the engagement of competitive gold (I) catalyst loadings (≤ 0.5 mol%) as a practical alternative to the conventional ≥ 10 mol% loadings of traditional promoters used in glycosylation. This concept was further employed in the synthesis of Polyphyllin D and congeners in a “pot-economy” approach. In 2019, he joined Prof Lowary’s group as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Biological Chemistry (IBC), Academia Sinica. His current research focuses on the synthesis of functionalized 5-methylthio-α-xylofuranoside (α-MTX) epitopes applicable as diagnostic probes for Mycobacterium tuberculosis in clinical samples. Outside the lab, he enjoys spending time with family, friends and seeing movies.

Dr. Tzu-Ting Kao obtained her B.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from National Taiwan Normal University and received her Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Kak-Shan Shia with Dr. Chun-Cheng Lin at National Tsing Hua University as a co-advisor in 2016. Her Ph.D. research focused on the development of an efficient radical tandem cyclization and applied the strategy to synthesize three natural products: retrojusticidin B, justicidin E and helioxanth. In 2017, she joined Dr. Lowary’s group as a postdoctoral fellow. Her research focused on the synthesis of acceptor substrates for an enzyme GlfT2, which is involved in arabinogalactan biosynthesis in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.