Meet Our Team
William Moss
Postdoctoral Scholar
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Li-av Segev Zarko received her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, where she studied antimicrobial peptides in bacterial biofilms. She completed her postdoctoral training in John Boothroyd’s lab at Stanford University, focusing on host–parasite interactions in Toxoplasma gondii. In 2024, she joined UTMB as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a member of the Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics. Her lab uses cryo-electron tomography and molecular tools to study the invasion machinery of apicomplexan parasites.
Lauren Gansereit
Graduate Student
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Hello, I’m Will and am a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Segev Zarko’s lab! I have studied eukaryotic biology for my entire research career so far. At Texas State University (with Dr. Kevin Lewis), I created genetic yeast mutants to study the role of telomeres and DNA repair in yeast. Then, at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (with Dr. Kevin Brown), I started research with the obligate intracellular eukaryotic parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, where I characterized two proteins that were determined to be critical for the parasite to survive within host cells. Currently, I’m studying how Toxoplasma gondii transports important proteins that are needed for invading new host cells. I’m excited to utilize cryoEM and other techniques to help me study these processes!
Hi! My name is Lauren Gansereit and I'm the first graduate student in the Segev-Zarko Laboratory. My scientific journey has evolved from studying ecologically relevant prokaryotic organisms to working with eukaryotic organisms that cause human disease. During my bachelor's at the University of Tennessee at Martin (Dr. Michael Kempf) I researched the genetic and structural characteristics of novel bacteriophage. After graduation, I worked as a research assistant at Vanderbilt University (Dr. William Wan) using cryogenic electron microscopy and tomography to study the life cycles of mononegaviruses. Now in the Segev-Zarko lab, I get to continue using these imaging techniques to research how Toxoplasma gondii parasites use their unique biology to invade human cells.
LAB FUN!
