People
Anastasios Vourekas got his PhD at the University of Patras in Greece studying the ribozyme RNase P with Denis Drainas. He did his PostDoc at Penn with Zissimos Mourelatos working on piRNAs and Piwi proteins. He started at LSU as a tenure track Assistant Professor in January 2019.
He is teaching BIOL 4132, Eukaryotic Molecular Genetics.
Email: avourekas@lsu.edu
Current:
Graduate Students
Mahmoud Dondeti is a Ph.D student at the department of Biological Sciences. He is interested in studying gene expression and its regulation, especially at the post-transcriptional level. He is studying the non-coding RNAs using bioinformatics and computational tools to uncover the mechanisms of gene regulation.
Email: Mdonde1@lsu.edu
Allison Scarboro is a second year Ph.D candidate from Savannah, Georgia . She graduated in 2019 from Oglethorpe University. Her project is focused on the study of RNase P. Furthermore, she is interested in proteomics and genomics.
Email: Ascarb7@lsu.edu
Josef Mick is a biochemistry Ph.D. student, who graduated from FSU in 2019 and started at the Vourekas lab in 2022. He is interested in the biochemical interactions and mechanisms of RNA as well as gene expression. His current project is focused on RNase P and its interaction with its substrate in vitro and in vivo. He is also working on our DDX3X project, now inverstigating how mRNA post-transcriptional modifications are sensed by DDX3X in the context of mRNA regulation.
Email: jmick1@lsu.edu
Undergraduate Students
Matthew Umstetter joined the lab in the summer of 2024, and he is currently doing his Honors Thesis with us, contributing to Josef's project on DDX3X. He loves running RNA gels!
Email: mumste1@lsu.edu
July 2025:
Eleni defended her thesis! The defense took place at University of Maastricht. A long journey came to the best conclusion. She is now heading to Aarhus University for a post doc under Ulf Andersson Ørom. MascRNA paper will very soon be posted on bioRxiv!
June 2025:
AV presented the DDX3X story in a flash talk and a poster at RNATx2025 at UMass Med!
December 2023:
We say goodbye to Monsif! He is off to University of Pennsylvania!
Summer 2022:
Alumni:
Graduate Students
Abd-El-Monsif (Monsif) Shawky was a graduate student from Egypt, and a bioinformatician with broad interests spanning
chromatin architecture and gene expression regulation. He worked on our DDX3X project,
which was accepted for publication in Cell Reports in 2025.
Monsif defended his thesis in December 2023, and he continues his career as a post-doc
at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania and the Penn Epigenetics Institute under Dr Kahlilia
Morris-Blanco.
Email: abd-el-monsif.ahmed@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Eleni Liapi was a research scholar at Louisiana State University, and a PhD student at Maastricht
University, The Netherlands. Eleni joined the Vourekas lab in October 2020 to carry
out the experimental part of her PhD, and spearheaded a project on the tRNA-like molecule
mascRNA. She discovered a novel mechanim by which mascRNA impacts gene regulation
through the functional and physical interaction with the SUMOylation pathway. She
defended her PhD thesis at the University of Maastricht in the summer of 2025.
Eleni is currently a post doc at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, in the lab of
Dr Ulf A.V. Ørom. Email: eliapi@mbg.au.dk
Xiongming Dai worked in our lab from Spring 2019 until December 2020. He initially developed the
chimeric read analysis pipeline for the tRNA fragment project, which was later completed
by Mahmoud Dondeti. He graduated from LSU with a PhD in computer science under the
supervision of Dr Gerald Baumgartner, in summer 2024.
He is currently working as a CTO-Chief AI scientist for Chaosheng semiconductor company
in Shanghai.
Email: daixiongming@gmail.com
Post-Bac Students
Aleah Holts graduated in 2021 at Louisiana State University. She worked in our lab as a post-bac
in 2022-2023, and contributed to the mascRNA project.
Undergrad students
Claire Fisher did her Undergraduate Honors Thesis in our lab in 2019 - 2020. Claire defended her
Honors Thesis on April 22nd 2020, and she is currently attending LSU Medical School
at Shreveport.
Deepika Nagliya worked in our lab in 2019 - 2020. Deepika is currently attending the College of Osteopathic Medicine at NSU Florida.
Kenneth Avanzino carried out his Undergraduate Honors Thesis in our lab in 2020 - 2021. Kenneth defended his Honors Thesis on April 14th 2021, and he is currently studying at LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine.
Jared Navarre worked in the Vourekas lab during 2019-2020. He is majoring in Biological Sciences
and aspires to go to medical school.
Lillian Wilder worked in the Vourekas lab during 2021-2022. She is pursuing a dual degree in Microbiology and Global Studies to obtain an M.d/Ph.D. and work internationally.
Email: Lwilde4@lsu.edu
Kaili Taylor was an undergraduate from Shreveport. She worked in the Vourekas lab during 2020-2023.
She was majoring in Biological Engineering and minoring in Computer Science and Biology.
She started her graduate school in Rutgers University.
Email: Ktay132@lsu.edu