Dr. Gao's Group
 

Group picture taken at 9th Southern School on Material Science and Computational Chemistry in July 2009

From left: Ruomei Gao (PI), Wyatt Sutton (summer high school student), Bertrand Wilson (summer high school student), Yazhou Zhang (postdoctoral researcher), Ebone Brown (summer high school student), Samantha Ashmore (summer high school student), Xianchun Zhu (postdoctoral researcher) and Naveen Gandra (former Ph.D. student)

Current group members

Makeisha T. Haygood, undergraduate

I am a 21 years old daughter of Lillian Patterson and Donald Haygood. I am a senior forensics concentration chemistry student. I graduated from Leland High School in Leland, MS. 

My research is in the area of thiopurine photoactivity.

Email: makeisha115_05@yahoo.com

Christopher D. Magee, undergraduate

I'm majoring in chemistry at Jackson State University, concentration pre-med and forensics. This is my forth year at JSU. I plan to graduate in May 2011. My current research involves the development of reference sensitizer with the aid of steady-state photolyisis and 31P NMR.

I graduated from Tylertown High School in May of 2006, in Tylertown, MS 39667. I'm 22 yeas old.

Email: magee_dbz@yahoo.com

Phone: 601-303-7411

Kandice Reynolds, undergraduate

I am a freshman, double major chemistry conc. forensics and biology. My research is to develop polymer-based nanosentisizers that may be used in photodynamic therapy for cancer treatment. 

williamskandice13@yahoo.com

Joshua Smith, undergraduate  
Papireddy Tiyyagura, graduate  
Yazhou Zhang, postdoctoral researcher

After receiving my Ph.D. in chemistry from Institute of Chemistry , Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS), I worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Max-Planck-Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry in Germany . My research focused on the interaction, structural confirmation and photo-process of some functional molecules bound to proteins. The major instruments used in the research were spectroscopy, NMR and time-resolved laser.

I joined Dr. Gao's group in April 2009. My current research concentrates on the production of reactive oxygen species upon illumination of thiopurine DNA bases.

Email: yazhou.zhang@jsums.edu or zhangyz@iccas.ac.cn

Xianchun Zhu, postdoctoral researcher

I was a graduate of May, 2009 from Bowling Green State University, and was trained in bioinorganic chemistry field there.

I am currently working on nanomaterial-based sensitizers for singlet oxygen photosensitization.

Email: xianchun.zhu@jsums.edu

Phone: 419-575-6757

 

Former group members

Naveen Gandra, Ph.D. student postdoctoral researcher at University of Oklahoma, 2009
Martha Taplin, summer high school student undergraduate at Jackson State University, 2009
Christine Tchounwou, summer high school student undergraduate at Tulane University, 2009
Wenbing Li, Postdoctoral researcher postdoctoral researcher at University of New Mexico, 2008
Shufang Li, visiting scientist from Hebei University of Science and Technology, 2008 professor at Hebei University of Science and Technology
Shavelle N. Courtney, B.S. graduate at University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2007