Student Profiles

Tuan Vinh holds a strong interdisciplinary foundation in chemistry, biology, and computer science, graduating with highest honors from Emory University. As an undergraduate, he contributed to multiple research projects at the interface of chemical biology and proteomics in the Raj Lab, where he developed novel probes for profiling methylated lysine and N-terminal modifications in proteins. His honors thesis introduced a unique cysteine-mimicking strategy to globally capture methylated proteoforms, combining chemical innovation with mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Tuan also gained experience in computational modeling and cheminformatics through independent projects. 

He aims to understand how low-oxygen (hypoxic) environments reshape gene expression programs and alter chromatin architecture across diverse cell types. By integrating chemical biology tools, systems proteomics, and deep learning, he plans to identify key enzymes and epigenetic regulators that mediate the cellular response to hypoxia. His long-term goal is to uncover novel, druggable targets for hypoxia-driven diseases such as cancer, with the broader vision of developing targeted therapeutics that modulate chromatin states under disease-specific microenvironments.