Dr. Arvin Lagda is originally from the Philippines and spent most of his life in Olongapo City and Manila. He became inspired to pursue a scientific career during his days at De La Salle University-Manila in part due to his adviser Dr. Esperanza Chua-Cabrera who taught him Microbiology and in part due to countless hours reading all the works of Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins. Armed with a thirst for more knowledge, he then lived and studied for 6 years in South Korea for his PhD in Molecular Biology, studying Protein-DNA interactions and negative gene regulation by histone like proteins in E. coli  under the tutelage of Prof Hyon Choy. From 2012-2014, he was a postdoc with Dr. Jie Xiao’s group at the Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry Department at Johns Hopkins University to study transcriptional and chromosomal dynamics in E. coli and learn and gain experience on single molecule techniques. By the end of 2014, he moved to the big apple and joined the Marazzi group to study Protein-RNA interactions and very interested in non coding RNA’s in mammalian cells and mechanistic details of viral RNA transcription at the context of host inflammation and virus infection.

When not being a scientist, Dr. Lagda is a history buff, an avid reader, watch collector, Japanophile, enjoys playing the guitar, watching movies and interested in anything Star Trek and science fiction. He lives in New Jersey with his wife Louie and their daughter Aerin.