ho-lab @ Duke-NUS
Lena Ho (PhD, Stanford University)
Lena trained with Gerald Crabtree during her PhD at Stanford University, where she studied the function and mechanism of chromatin remodeling proteins in the epigenetic regulation of embryonic, hematopoietic and cancer stem cells. During her postdoc in Bruno Reversade's lab, she discovered the paradigm that non-coding RNAs can in fact encode peptides from small open reading frames (sORFs), exemplified by the peptide hormone ELABELA encoded by what was then thought to be a non-coding RNA. In 2017, Lena established the Endogenous Peptides Lab (EPL) in Duke-NUS/IMB-A*STAR, which utilizes a combinatorial platform to discover and characterize novel sORF-encoded peptides (SEPs) in the human genome. Her goal is to bring novel SEPs from discovery to deployment in combating cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.
ORCID ID
Cheryl Lee (PhD, Cambridge University), Principal Research Scientist
Cheryl characterized and isolated human trophoblast progenitor cells during her PhD with Ashley Moffett in Cambridge. Afterwards, she worked in Janet Rossant's lab at SickKids elucidating the trajectories of trophoblast stem cell differentiation in the mouse. Cheryl joined the EPL in 2017 with an interest in dissecting the mechanisms of vascular inflammation, the underlying cause of many major cardiovascular diseases. To this end, she leads the effort to discover and characterize inflammatory SEPs, with a focus on those that modulate metabolism. She is currently deciperhing how MOCCI modulates inflammatory outcomes.
Nah Jiemin (PhD, National University of Singapore), Senior Research Fellow
During her PhD, Jiemin worked in the Guo Lab (A*STAR, IMCB) where she focused on studying ribosome heterogeneity, and the role of specialized ribosomes in translational regulation during erythropoiesis. She uncovered unique subpools of ribosomes that could preferentially translate mRNAs that drive erythroid differentiation. She joined the EPL in 2021 with an interest to identify and study SEPs involved in mitochondrial translation and cell metabolism.
Baptiste Kerouanton (MSc, Grenoble INP Phelma), PhD student
Baptiste graduated from Grenoble INP Phelma (France) with a master degree in biomedical engineering. HIs theesis project is aimed at pplying bioinformatics and machine learning methods to predict the localization and potential functions of uncharacterized SEPs, as well as using crispr screening to identify SEPs important for mitochondrial metabolism.
Esther Gan (PhD, Duke-NUS), Senior Research Fellow
Esther obtained her PhD with Oei Eng Eong at Duke-NUS in infectious disease. After industry positions in Nuevocor and Biomedical Medical Sciences IP office, Esther joined the EPL in 2025 to drive our commercialization and translation efforts for SEPs in a bridge project with 65Labs and LIVE Ventures.
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Pooja Sridharan (BSc, SRM University, Chennai) PhD student
Pooja graduated with a BTech in Genetic Engineering and joined the EPL in 2021 with an interest to characterize the function of novel mito-SEP in metabolic regulation. Her thesis project aims to identify mito-SEPs that are responsible for protein quality control in the mitochondria.
Alanna Wong (BSc, National University of Singapore) PhD student
Alanna graduated with a BSc in Pharm Sciences, and joined the EPL in 2023. Her thesis project is aimed at discovering and characterizing mito-SEPs that are dysregulated in heart failure.
Tan Kiat Yi (BSc, University of Toronto) PhD student
Kiat graduated with a BSc in biology and joined the EPL in 2023. Her thesis project is to identify the mechanisms responsible of the mitochondrial import of mito-SEPs.
Lab Alumni
Rhea Nadkarni, MSc student, now PhD candidate at Max-Planck
Shan Zhang, postdoc, now Assistant Professor at Zhejiang University
Liang Chao, PhD student, now at Hengrui Pharmaceuticals
Radiance Lim, postdoc, now scientist at Skin Research Institutes, A*STAR
Sonia Chothani, postdoc, now PI at Genome Institute, A*STAR