Elena Lian

Elena is a graduate student in the Microbiology PhD program. She obtained her B.S. from Colorado State University where she studied the role of polyunsaturated fatty acids, particularly arachidonic acid, upon the replication of dengue viruses in Dr. Rushika Perera’s lab. As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Perera lab expanded its focus towards testing compounds for antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2. Elena's contributions include helping set up the BSL-3 Respiratory Wing to conduct these studies, assay development and optimization, experimentation, and data analysis. She is currently a PhD student in Dr. Mary Jackson’s lab. In the Jackson lab, she studies polysaccharides and structural modifications in the cell envelope of Mycobacterium abscessus and how they affect the bacterium’s physiology and pathogenicity.