Lab members

Dan earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University before receiving his medical degree and doctorate at Washington University in St. Louis. He completed his residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a fellowship in infectious diseases at Washington University and a postdoctoral fellowship at Rockefeller University. He then returned to Washington University, where he was named professor in 1998. In 2022, Dr. Goldberg was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Eva has undergraduate degrees in chemistry and biochemical/biophysical sciences from the University of Houston. She did her graduate research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center with Dr. Johann Deisenhofer where she learned protein crystallography and solved the structure of human HMG-CoA reductase. Eva joined Dr. Goldberg’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow in 2001. She is interested in the molecular mechanisms of antimalarial compounds and processes which lead to the development of resistance.

Barbara completed her master degree on biochemistry at the University of Nebraska. Before coming to Washington University in St. Louis , she worked for a pharmaceutical company for several years. Since then, she has been at Washu working for different labs in the department of immunology. For the last 20 years, Barbara has worked in the Goldberg Lab in the Department of Medicine and Molecular Microbiology on different molecular cloning projects. She’s described by many members as the “Cloning God” of the lab.

Sumit graduated from Texas Tech University where he studied the role of sterol metabolism in Leishmania stress tolerance and infectivity. Currently, as a postdoctoral research associate in the Goldberg lab he is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulates the exit of P. falciparum from the infected host erythrocytes and the subsequent invasion into uninfected erythrocytes with a special focus on the parasite’s proteases.

Kelly completed her bachelor in biology with a minor in entomology at Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia. She then worked with Dr. Socrates Herrera on Plasmodium vivax vaccine development and fitness of P. vivax infected Anopheles albimanus mosquitoes. Curious about the erythrocytic cycle of malaria parasites, Kelly Joined the lab of Dr. David Fidock at Columbia University in New York, where she worked on drug discovery, compound’s mode of action and molecular target. Currently, as a graduate student in the Goldberg Lab, she is interested in determining the function of a 97-residue asparagine repeat in the histone acetyl transferase protein, GCN5.

Katherine (she/they) graduated from Clemson University with degrees in Microbiology and Biochemistry and experience studying the heme biosynthesis pathway of Toxoplasma. They are now a Molecular and Cell Biology PhD candidate in the Goldberg Lab. She is interested in understanding Plasmodium’s endoplasmic reticulum stress pathways and inhibiting these pathways in the parasite.

Alvee studied Cryptosporidium sexual differentiation in the Huston lab at the University of Vermont for his PhD. As a postdoc in the lab, he is currently working on protein trafficking pathways of P. falciparum, focusing on proteins that travel to the RBC as well as proteins of the parasite’s digestive vacuole.

Xu Wang graduated from Xia Men University in China where she studied the regulation of ookinete development in rodent Plasmodium. Currently, as a postdoctoral research associate in the Goldberg lab, she is interested in the Cryo-EM structure of microtubules in Plasmodium falciparum merozoites and gametocytes.

Vibert completed his bachelor’s and master’s in microbiology degrees at Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Albany, NY.  During his masters, he investigated combination-based therapy against carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii. Now as a grad student, he is investigating novel drug targets in Plasmodium alongside the MalDA (Malaria Drug Accelerator) consortium.

Melissa obtained here PhD from the University of Nebraska Medical Center where she investigated the contribution of Plasmodium falciparum proteostasis mechanisms to artemisinin resistance and as antimalarial targets. She is currently a postdoctoral research scholar in the Goldberg lab where she is investigating how blood stage parasites regulate cytosolic heme concentrations while residing within heme-rich red blood cells and in response to antimalarials.