Contact Information

 Robert C. Spitale, Ph.D. CV
 A.P. Giannini Postdoctoral Fellow A.P. Giannini Foundation
 Chang Lab, CCSR 2130
 Stanford University
 269 Campus Drive
 Stanford, CA 94305-5168







Personal

   Rob lives in Sunnyvale, CA, with his wife Crystal, their Daughter Josephine, and their two dogs Roxy and Amelia.

Professional

   Rob was a double major in biology and chemistry at the State University of New York, College at Fredonia (S.U.N.Y. Fredonia). While at Fredonia he performed undergraduate research in the laboratory of Professor Mark E. Janik. In Mark's lab he focused on sythesizing clinically improved colchicine-like compounds that bind to the colchicine site on tubulin. Follow up studies on these compounds is currently underway. Rob graduated from S.U.N.Y. Fredonia in 2004.
Mark E. Janik's Lab

   In the fall of 2004 Rob enrolled in the Chemistry Ph.D. program at the University of Rochester. He was the first student to enroll in the newly formed biological chemistry cluster. In the lab of Professor Joseph E. Wedekind, Rob focused on the chemical and structural properties of non-coding RNA molecules. His work was instrumental in expanding our understanding of the the chemical and structural contributions that nucleobase functional groups can make in ribozyme rate acceleration and structural integrity. In addition, he worked toward determining the three-dimensional structure of the smallest naturally occurring metabolite-responsive RNA descrbed to date. He graduated with a Ph.D. in chemistry, with a concentration in biophysics. He then moved to Stanford University.
Joseph E. Wedekind's lab

   At Stanford, Robert joined the lab of Howard Y. Chang. In Howard's lab he is continuing his focus on long non-coding RNAs.
Howard Y. Chang's Lab