Alex Rangel

Graduate Student

About me: I grew up in Carrollton, TX and received a bachelor's degree in Chemistry with a minor in mathematics from Austin College in Sherman, TX in 2012. I then moved to Salt Lake City to pursue my Ph.D. at the University of Utah where I've had the privilege of working in the Heemstra lab for four years and have developed a great interest in nucleic acid chemistry and biosensor development. Outside of lab I am passionate about climbing, hiking, canyoneering, snowboarding, video games, vegan food and cats!

Research: My current research projects involve the selection and characterization of threose nucleic acid (TNA) aptamers with affinity for specific targets. Because of TNA's uniques structure, there is great interest in utilizing the recognition properties of these aptamers for the development of nuclease-stable biosensors. Additionally, I am working on developing a novel SELEX method in order to generate structure-switching aptamers.