Araç Laboratory at UChicago

Jingxian grew up in China and got her PhD in biology from Tsinghua University in 2015. She joined the Araç Lab as a postdoctoral scholar and is currently continuing her work focusing on the interaction between Latrophilin and its ligand Teneurin.

Sumit completed his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Michigan in the laboratory of John Tesmer, where he studied GPCR effectors known as RhoGEFs implicated in cancer. He joined the Araç Lab in 2020 as a postdoctoral scholar and studies how the extracellular regions of adhesion GPCRs regulate their function.

Szymon grew up in Poland, where he received his master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology. After finishing his studies he moved to the US in 2015, where he worked in the Bob Keenan laboratory at University of Chicago, studying membrane protein co- and post-translational targeting and insertion pathways. Szymon joined the lab in 2019 through the Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics Graduate Program and is continuing as a Postdoctoral Scholar.

Indya Weathers graduated with her Bachelors of Science in the department of Chemistry & Biochemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2019. Before attending UCLA, she was funded as a Bridges to Baccalaureate Research Scholar to study the role of the C1q protein in neurogenesis and aging at the University of California, Irvine at the Dr. Aileen Anderson Lab. In her undergraduate research training, she was an IMSD Scholar in the Undergraduate Research Center Sciences studying eukaryotic gene regulation and the role that the spliceosome components play in alternative splicing events at the Dr. Guillaume Chanfreau lab. She is now completing her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at the University of Chicago and joined the Araç and Ozkan Labs in September of 2021. 

Jakub grew up in Poland, where he completed his master’s studies in Biotechnology at the Łódź University of Technology. He gained additional research experience as the member and chair of Biotechnology Student Association FERMENT. In 2024 he moved to the US and joined the Bob Keenan laboratory at the University of Chicago as a participant in the BioLAB Program administrated by Polish-US Fulbright Commission. There he studied co-translational protein translocation to the ER with Cryo-EM techniques. Jakub joined the lab in 2025 as a research analyst.

Ishaan grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey before coming to UChicago as a molecular biology and neuroscience undergraduate student in 2024. He joined the Araç Lab in 2025. In his free time, Ishaan enjoys listening to music, swimming, and walking in nature.