Home of the Robert Kirchdoerfer lab
Elsa joined the Kirchdoerfer lab in August 2025. She studies the encapsidation of viral genomic RNA by the coronavirus nucleocapsid. She combines both recombinant and cell-based approaches to examine nucleocapsid using biochemistry and structural biology
Audrey studies how viral RNA impacts coronavirus polymerase function by developing novel binding assays and will probe the importance of RNA elements in stimulating polymerase activity. Audrey is the recipient of an NIH F31 pre-doctoral fellowship.
Andrew joined the Kirchdoerfer in 2024 as part of the Biophysics program. He is using biochemistry, computation and structure to examine how coronavirus polymerases engage with mismatched RNA substrates to look at viral proofreading.
Ena is working to examine the activity of the coronavirus nsp15 endonuclease protein as a means of uncovering the protein’s cleavage specificity. Ena is the recipient of a Biochemistry Research Fellowship and a Travel award to the 2024 Positive-strand RNA virus meeting.