TEAM – JIN LAB

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” –Nelson Mandela

Mashiat Chowdhury

Mashiat is a graduate student in Biochemistry. She obtained her master’s and undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from BRAC University, Bangladesh. She is currently working on understanding how decapping activators affect ribosome dynamics in translation. She is also working on understanding translation control by rRNA modifications at the functional sites of the ribosome.

Christopher Hawk

Chris earned a BA in Biochemistry from DePauw University in Greencastle, IN, then moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018 to continue his biochemical studies in the MCB PhD program. In the lab, Chris uses a number of cell-based, biochemical, and structural techniques to study factors involved in eukaryotic translation and ribosome-associated quality control pathways. In his free time Chris enjoys listening to music, eating, cooking, watching soccer, and spending quality time with his partner and dogs.

Xin Chen

Xin is a graduate student in Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology. He received his B.S. degree in Biological Sciences and PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Jilin University. He become a member of Jin lab since 2018. He has been working on eukaryotic translation mechanism at atomic level via single particle cryo-EM from then on. In addition to research, Xin has board interests in soccer, video games and comics.

Sounak Saha

Sounak is a graduate student in Department of Biochemistry. He received his B.Tech(Hons.) and M.Tech degree in Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He became a member of Jin lab since 2022. He has been working on eukaryotic translation mechanism and ribosomal quality control from then on. In addition to research, Sounak is interested in photography, sketching, traveling, gaming and comics.

Madison

Madison is currently an undergraduate student studying Biochemistry with a minor in Chemistry and hopes to pursue her Ph.D. after graduating. To gain research experience and investigate her interests in gene expression and regulation, she joined the lab in August of 2021 and studies the structure and function of Ribosome Quality Control associated proteins. When not in the lab she enjoys hiking, working out, reading, and being involved with different organizations on campus.

Office: (217) 244-9493
Lab: (217) 333-3944

hjin@illinois.edu