The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) has awarded two students with the Louis and Elsa Thomsen Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in 2025. The year-long fellowship, first established in 1999 by the estate of Elsa Tomsen, supports CALS graduate students who have demonstrated excellence in research. This year’s recipients are Siyuan Feng (Pool Lab, Genetics Ph.D. program) and Rohith Rajasekaran (Coyle Lab, Integrated Program in Biochemistry).
Rajasekaran’s Ph.D. thesis research project studies how to repurpose cellular systems that exist in nature to engineer new functions into cells. His work focuses on engineering a biochemical signaling system, known as the MinDE reaction-diffusion system, that helps create dynamic patterns of biochemical activity, moving molecules to the right places at the right time in a cell.
Rajasekaran has been working to engineer MinDE protein systems in mammalian cells to employ the patterns of movement the system can generate to induce a new function in the cell. Ultimately, this work could allow scientists to understand and program cell behavior. His research appeared on the cover of the peer-reviewed journal Cell in January 2024, and a patent has been filed through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
In his final year of graduate school, with funding from the Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, Rajasekaran will continue to explore the applications of the MinDE system to control and engineer cellular functions.
“Receiving this award helps to solidify for me that my research has been impactful,” says Rajasekaran. “I’m excited to represent the Department on behalf of CALS for this fellowship as the culmination of the work I’ve been doing. It feels really good to be recognized, and I see this award as being not just about me but about my entire lab and all of our work together.”
Written by Renata Solan.