Principal Investigator
JESSICA C. SEELIGER
Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmacological Sciences
Secondary Appointment, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
Affiliated Faculty, Department of Chemistry
Hometown: Oberlin, OH
E-mail: jessica.seeliger@stonybrook.edu
Telephone: 631-632-1674
Office: CMM 448
Favorites: Markus Seeliger, dark chocolate, crunchy peanut butter, St. Lawrence String Quartet, her babies Carl and Maria, imagining that she is still the tallest person in the lab.
Jessica received her AB in Chemistry from Harvard University in 2000, her MPhil in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2001, and her PhD in Chemistry from Stanford University in 2007. She moved to the University of California, Berkeley, in 2007 as a postdoctoral fellow with Carolyn Bertozzi and in Fall 2010 started her lab in the Department of Pharmacological Sciences at Stony Brook University.
Team Members
JSeeliger Lab Alumni
Lab Fun! Photo evidence of our antics and triumphs
MARY LOU PREVITI
Research Associate
Hometown: Northport, NY
Favorites: Her two daughters, sweets from the lab candy jar, and singing while jamming out to loud music
Mary Lou is the Indiana Jones of research. In her more than twenty years at the bench she has:
1. Extracted proteins from sawdust for allergy testing
2. Tested hearing in guinea pigs
3. Hunted ticks
4. Extracted DNA from placentas
5. Injected mice by flashlight, during a hurricane, to transfer parasites
6. Crushed brains
(In other words, don't mess with Mary Lou.) She is also why the lab runs smoothly and why everyone is so well trained. She's a humble person and so of course didn't make this bio, but that's what you get when you don't bother to write it yourself after more than a year in the lab.
NEETIKA JAISINGHANI
Postdoctoral Researcher
Hometown: Gwalior, India
Favorites: Learning new languages, cooking, motorcycling, eating
Neetika received her BSc in Biotechnology from Banasthali University, India; her MSc from Bangalore University, India and her PhD in host lipid metabolism in tuberculosis from CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, India in 2018. She joined the JCS lab at SUNY, Stony Brook in April 2019 as a postdoctoral researcher and wants to become an expert in mass spectrometry and also work on understanding the influence of lipid metabolites on the immune response in infectious diseases.
ISABEL SAKARIN
Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD) Student, Microbiology and Immunology
Hometown: Huntington Station, New York
Favorites: Maximalist fashion, baking, and being upside-down
Isabel received her BA in Biochemistry from Vassar College in 2019, where she engaged in a variety of exciting research projects. She visualized protozoan phagocytosis in Dr. Bill Straus’s lab, helped characterize the role of mannose metabolism in liver fibrosis in Dr. Jaime Chu’s lab at Mount Sinai, and crystallized bacterial proteins in Dr. Krystle McLaughlin’s lab. Isabel joined the Stony Brook MSTP in 2019 and found her research home in the JCS Lab in 2021. As a member of the JCS Lab, Isabel investigates membrane fluidity in environmental and pathogenic mycobacteria. She is particularly interested in exploring how membrane fluidity relates to antibiotic susceptibility and the effects of antibiotic treatment. Through this work, Isabel aims to uncover fundamental principles of mycobacterial membrane dynamics, with the hope that these insights may inform future approaches to combating diseases like tuberculosis.
KINDRA BECKER
Graduate Student, Chemistry
Hometown: Seattle, WA—> Berkeley Heights, NJ —> Knoxville, TN —> Columbia, SC —> Brooklyn, NY
Favorites: Reading, travel, my family
Kindra received her B.A. in English Literature in 2009 and her masters in library and information science in 2011, both from the University of South Carolina. Kindra was librarian at Fordham University for almost a decade before pivoting to chemistry research and joining the PhD program at Stony Brook in 2021. She did her very first research rotation in the Seeliger lab and fell in love with the lab and mycobacteria (weird but true). She is excited about using chemistry to solve biological questions in mycobacteria.
MUKSHUD AHAMED
Graduate Student, Molecular and Cell Biology
Hometown: Westbrook, CT
Favorites: Studio Ghibli, the gym, channeling my ancestors through cooking, the beach and gardening
Mukshud received his B.A. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Wesleyan University in 2019. At Wesleyan University he worked in the lab of Erika Taylor. In her lab, Mukshud worked on the gene-function assignment of putative tRNA modifying enzymes isolated from pathogenic bacteria. Mukshud is excited to join team APEX and proximity label all the proteins in the periplasm and mycomembrane!
JULIAN MACEREN
Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD) Student, Chemistry
Hometown: North Brunswick, NJ
Favorites: Reading, running, donuts, plants (caring for >100!), tennis, activism/advocacy work
Julian received his B.S. in Chemistry and B.A. in Spanish from the University of Rochester in 2020. After graduating, he joined the lab of Derek Tan at Memorial Sloan Kettering where Julian helped lead the development of a high-throughput screening assay to characterize small-molecule accumulation and permeability in gram-negative bacteria. In 2022, Julian entered Stony Brook as an MSTP student and in 2024 joined the Seeliger group as part of Team Membrain. Julian is eager to apply his training as a chemistry student to understanding mycobacterial membrane fluidity.
CYRUS CLABEAUX 
Undergraduate Researcher, Physics and Applied Mathematics and Statistics
Hometown: Buffalo, NY
Favorites: Drawing, playing the viola, badminton, ice skating, the gym, Korean dramas, family
At the University of Buffalo, Cyrus worked in the lab of Professor Andrea Markelz. In her lab, Cyrus worked on optimizing inhibitor binding, protein crystal growth, and dielectric response for time-domain spectroscopy. Currently, he is excited to be working on pipeline development for Team Membrain to aid in cellular analysis!
THE MTB TRIPLETS
Lab Mascots
Hometown: Berkeley, CA
Favorites: 7H9 and 7H11 media; mice, guinea pigs and monkeys; growing slowly
The triplets (CDC1551, Erdman and H37Rv) moved with Jessica to Stony Brook in 2010. They hang out in lab and keep everyone in line. Their primary activities are making complex lipids, being pathogenic, and keeping us guessing about how they do so.
