Staff
Postdoctoral Researchers
Najmeh Nikpour, PhD
While completing my PhD in Molecular and Biochemical Parasitology at the Institute of Parasitology (McGill University) she became interested in understanding strategies involve in gene regulation of Eukaryotes. Her project used novel quantitative models to gather cell-type specific gene regulatory programs via large-scale decoding of regulatory sequences in hESCs.
Emmanuel Cazottes
Understanding how gene expression is regulated by distal enhancer is crucial for decoding human health and disease. In the de Boer lab, he was developing an innovative high-throughput technology to measure enhancer regulatory activity across diverse cellular contexts, including cancer and stem cells. By leveraging artificial intelligence to analyze this comprehensive dataset, he aimed to uncover the underlying principles governing enhancer function and their impact on human disease.
Before joining the de Boer lab, he obtained his PhD from the lab of Claire Rougeulle, Université Paris Cité in France, where he worked on the evolution of X Chromosome Inactivation and gene regulation in primates.
Beyond the bench, he engages actively in science communication through events such as the Pint of Science Festival, European Researchers’ Night and the national French Science Festival. Emmanuel.cazottes@ubc.ca |X/Twitter |Bsky
Research Associates
Cassandra Jensen, PhD
Cassandra was a Research Associate in the de Boer lab. Her project involved engineering synthetic chromosomes to improve models of gene regulation and to study mechanisms of de novo gene birth. Cassandra previously worked as a Senior Scientist at Boreal Genomics (Natera), and was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Boer lab before that.
Graduate Students
Hadis Kamali Dehghan
Hadis obtained her master’s degree in the Genome Science and Technology Program. Her previous work included Biomedical Engineering, including designing scaffolds for regenerative medicine. Her thesis project aimed to find drugs to treat gene regulation changes in diseases.
Madison Chapel
Madison graduated from the bioinformatics Masters program at UBC. Before joining the de Boer lab, she completed her BSc in microbiology at the University of Manitoba and her BSc in computer science at University of the People. Madison explored the underlying complexity of gene regulatory networks, and how this complexity evolves.
Ishika Luthra
Ishika was a PhD student in Bioinformatics. She graduated from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelors of Applied Science in Biomedical Engineering in 2018. In the de Boer lab she was working on using CNN models to predict cell type specific motifs using single cell ATAC sequencing data. Her interests include yoga, baking and hiking.
Staff
Manaswi Yendluri
Manaswi is an Administrative Assistant in the de Boer lab and helps with supporting daily operations. She graduated from UBC with a degree in Psychology. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, music, and hiking.
Satyam Priyadarshi
Satyam Priyadarshi is a Research Technician in Carl de Boer’s lab at UBC, with an academic background in Physics and Astronomy. During his undergraduate studies, he focused on the synthesis of quantum materials at the Quantum Matter Institute and worked on the search for dark photons with the Belle II research group at UBC. After graduating, Satyam transitioned into bioinformatics at the Beaty Biodiversity Research Centre, where he analyzed gene expression patterns in the Genome Evolution Lab. Currently, he is working to standardize the evaluation of genomic models across various datasets.
In addition to his research, he serves as an advisor to the UBC Astronomy Club, leading outreach initiatives. Outside the lab, he enjoys hiking, playing badminton and tennis, swimming, exploring new restaurants and cafés, and travelling.
Daniella Liao
Daniella was a lab technician in the de Boer Lab in 2024-2025. She completed her undergraduate studies majoring in Biochemistry at UBC. She previously worked at Zymeworks Inc. researching antibody-drug conjugates. In the de Boer lab, Daniella is focusing on developing an induced pluripotent stem cell library containing different synthetic regulatory DNA sequences. Outside the lab, she enjoys exploring new restaurants in Metro Vancouver and traveling.
Undergraduate Students
Phoenix Jin
Phoenix is pursuing an Honours BSc degree in Biotechnology at UBC-BCIT, with a keen interest in genomics and cell biology. As a co-op student and as part of the 2024 SBME Synergy studentship program, she worked with Dogancan to identify genomic regions suitable for transgene integration to tackle transgene silencing. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, hiking, and music.
Björn Holst
Björn is an undergraduate Computer Science student pursuing a BSc degree at UBC. Björn’s research interests revolve around machine learning in STEM – with a focus on genetics, human movement, and robotics. For the 2023 SBME Summer Studentship program, Björn worked with Rafi to investigate data-driven methods of improving cis-regulatory model performance. In his free time, Björn loves volleyball and poetry.
Hudson Nock
Hudson is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics at UBC. He has a strong interest in machine learning and mathematics which drew him towards a coop position in the de Boer lab. In the spring of 2023, Hudson worked with Rafi towards interpreting neural networks that were trained to predict DNA expression levels.
Emilia Chen
Emilia completed her BSc in Microbiology & Immunology and Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. She did Directed Studies followed by a SBME/GSAT Summer Studentship in the de Boer lab in 2021. Emilia enjoys integrating multidisciplinary approaches in problem-solving. Emilia worked with Ishika and Najmeh on investigating the grammatical rules in regulatory elements. Outside of research, Emilia loves exploring the great outdoors and good food.
Yimin Wang
Yimin was a co-op student from BCIT who worked with Omar and Asfar on target capture approaches for enriching for specific genomic sequences in 2022.
Chris-Andra McIntosh
Chris-Andra investigated regulation of the TNFAIP3 gene as part of the CBR-SBME Undergraduate Research Program in the Summer of 2020.
Sara Ndlovu-Fraser
Sara is an undergraduate Integrated Sciences student with interests in autoimmune diseases and gene therapy. She previously worked in oncolytic virus research, engineering vaccinia viruses targeted to solid tumours. As a co-op student in the de Boer lab, she is now working with Dogancan to investigate ways to mitigate transgene silencing. Outside of the lab, Sara enjoys playing basketball, running, biking, and occasionally dabbling in short story writing!
Justin Qian
Justin is an undergraduate Engineering Physics student at UBC with research interests broadly in machine learning, physics, and biology. As a co-op student, he is working with Rafi to implement active learning approaches to more effectively train the lab’s cis-regulatory models with. In his free time, he likes biking, reading, and travelling.
Samuel Lau
Samuel is an Engineering Physics student at UBC with interests in applied machine learning and robotics. He is currently working with Rafi to integrate MPRA-based representations with genomic context models for regulatory prediction. Outside of school and work, he enjoys playing guitar, singing, and playing soccer.
Lex Lizares
Lex is an undergraduate student in the UBC–BCIT Honours in Biotechnology program. In her previous co-op, she worked with saRNA-LNPs for bacterial vaccine development. She is currently a co-op student in the de Boer Lab, where she works with Omar to optimize methodologies for lentiviral delivery.