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March 2024 Spotlight: John Yun-Chung Chen

I am a graduate student in Dr. Xuping Xie's lab. I study variants within SARS-CoV-2 and the roles that nonstructural proteins play. I am a biological engineer by training, and many of my past research projects have involved virology. Prior to UTMB, I worked on an adeno-associated virus gene therapy project at UC Berkeley, and subsequently worked to study HIV-1 at the NIH. 

Our lab at UTMB originally worked primarily on Zika virus and Dengue virus. During to the coronavirus pandemic, our lab quickly pivoted towards SARS-CoV-2 work, and I have been fortunate to receive related training from our lab in a time-efficient manner. This involves not only in-vitro work in BSL3 containment, but also animal studies in the corresponding animal BSL3 (ABSL3) facilities. I now have independent access to both types of facilities and will be training incoming trainees in our lab to work safely in containment labs. 

In my spare time, I enjoy learning foreign languages and listening to music. I play the violin and a little bit of piano. I enjoy karaoke and always appreciate a supportive audience if I were to sing anything from the microphone. 

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