Geeking Out With...Emily Ziperman
October 6, 2025
Abigail Arnold
Geeking Out With…is a feature in which we talk to graduate students about their passions. You can check out past installments here.
Emily Ziperman is a sixth-year PhD student in Chemistry. She is a member of the Krauss Lab, where her research focuses on directed evolution. She joined Geeking Out With… to talk about her research and how she collaborates with others in the lab.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
What does your research focus on?
My research specifically focuses on the worlds of directed evolution and glycobiology. My goal is to evolve an glyco-RNA aptamer – a short piece of RNA with glycans attached that binds a protein really well. These types of molecules are generally used to study other biomolecules or for therapeutic purposes which cannot be accessed using more conventional methods. The main one I’ve worked on is able to bind HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies, with the idea being that an aptamer we evolve could be used in an HIV vaccine. What’s unique about what my lab does are the glycans (a sugar molecule on the outside of cells that is used in immune system messaging) we attach to our aptamers that help with targeting disease.
How did you become interested in this area of research?
I went into undergrad thinking I wanted to be a doctor, and I joined a clinical research lab. Then I realized I didn’t like doing clinical research because it was too slow for me. Instead, I joined another professor’s lab where we did a lot of analytical chemistry, and that’s where I got interested in glycans. In her lab, we worked on analyzing glycans and how to use them. I thought they were super cool and wanted to learn more. After applying to Brandeis, I met Isaac Krauss, my advisor, and I liked how his lab takes a multidisciplinary approach to figuring out how to use them.
How has your project evolved over your time working on it?
This has been a really challenging project since it has several novel aspects that no one in the lab had done before. Regular DNA or RNA degrades really quickly in the body, so I set out to do modifications to my aptamers that would help them last longer. This was a logical step to take in my research, but it also made the project a lot more difficult. It’s led me to trying a lot of new things – sequencing to assess the fidelity of enzymes I made myself, chemical reactions to attach sugars to them and see how they bind to proteins, and lots of collaboration with labmates. For example, I work with synthetic chemists to make sugars or biologists to figure out more about the enzymes. We have mostly Chemistry students in my lab, but there are also some Molecular and Cell Biology students.
What does a typical day or week in the lab look like?
There isn’t a typical day or week since a project usually happens in month-long stages. An organic chemist will often make some kind of molecule and then hand it off to me or another student who will try to make it into something specific. Then one of the biologists or I might work on characterizing it, figuring out what we can do with it. Everyone is working on a main project, but we each participate in taking it to a different stage. Someone might want to synthesize a molecule, someone else to use it in a functional way, someone else to characterize it. We’ve also collaborated with other universities. Starting at the end of my first year, we’ve been working with a lab at CalTech which is also trying to synthesize glycans and attach them to antibodies.
Do you have thoughts on how you’d like to continue with your research once you graduate?
Short-term, I definitely want to work in the Boston area, since it has a lot of applied therapeutics opportunities. In a few years, my husband, who is a sixth-year Neuroscience PhD student, and I would also like to go work in Europe. There are some really interesting scientific collaborations with industry there, and I’d love to travel and get the perspective of living in a different country.
What people and resources at Brandeis have helped you in your work?
I used to be a Graduate Department Representative (GDR), and Marika McCann helped me get a lot of events together then. By going to her career development events, I’ve been able to figure out what skills to focus on at different stages of my program and grow my soft skills. I also love the science librarians! I do a lot of coding for sequencing analysis, and they have given me a lot of help since no one else in my lab really does that. Some of us in the lab also went to the library’s 3-D printing training, and we were able to print some gel pipettes that we use in the lab! This was great since the pipettes break easily and are very expensive, and we were able to use the MakerLab on campus for free. You can test out fun stuff to learn how to 3-D print, and once you have a good grasp of it you can make very useful things.
Besides your research, what are you involved with inside and outside of Brandeis?
I helped start the Talking Points social, where scientists can talk about anything they’re excited about, except for science and their research. It helps people develop presentation skills, since you need to get the audience interested in a random topic. I also was a GDR, which got me connected to a lot of other students in my program; I can now recognize them and say hi. In Chemistry, we also do summer and winter sports and play volleyball and ping-pong in the gym.
I love to travel and have gotten to go on a few international trips and a lot of trips in New England since coming here. I love to read, and I think one of my favorite things to do is to find a very beautiful place and read in it.
What advice do you have for other students exploring their passions?
Don’t be afraid to put hard work behind your passions. Part of what made it a passion is that you loved it, but it’s going to take a lot of work to have a passion project and that’s okay. Remember what your dreams are and push through.
One of the best things I’ve gotten to experience here is having unbridled curiosity and getting to talk to other students about research and do deep dives in my own work with the help of my PI. Everyone at Brandeis, whether at work or at home, should try to be as curious as possible and support their own curiosity.