Novel Proteins to Fight Superbug Bacterial Infections

$10,000 Lemelson-MIT “Cure it!” Undergraduate Team Winner

The three members of Stanford University’s Team Lyseia come from different backgrounds and diverse areas of expertise, but they share a strong interest in addressing the growing global threat of bacterial infections caused by antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.”

Maria Filsinger Interrante is a dual Mexican-American citizen from Minnetonka, Minn., where she took advanced science and math courses at the University of Minnesota while still in high school. She conducted research in protein engineering, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology as a Stanford undergraduate. She held several leadership positions in the Stanford Society of Women Engineers, where she doubled the number of K-12 students reached by the group’s STEM education initiatives as Director of Outreach.

Christian Choe grew up in Fullerton, Calif., where he spent his free time conducting home-chemistry experiments ranging from purifications to the synthesis of small organic compounds. Currently, he works under Professor James Swartz in the Department of Chemical Engineering on stabilizing virus-like particles for lyophilized vaccines and under Dr. TJ Lane at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on inferring protein kinetics from unordered protein conformations.

Zachary Rosenthal grew up in Houston, Texas, where he competed in debate competitions throughout the United States. He currently works as a research assistant in the Department of Chemical and Systems Biology, where he works under Professor James Chen to develop new small-molecule therapeutics for Hedgehog-pathway related cancers. He also worked as a research assistant in the Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology.