Lab Team

LAB TEAM

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Professor of Pathobiology
Email: geelau@illinois.edu
Phone: (217) 333-5077
Fax: (217) 244-7421

Brief biography. Gee came from Malaysia where he finished high school. He received his B.S. (1990) and M.S. (1992) degrees in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and PhD (1997) from Purdue University, studying the genetics and molecular pathogenesis of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe grisea under Al Ellingboe and John Hamer, respectively. He did a 2-year postdoc with David Holden at the Imperial College School of Medicine, examining functional genomics of virulence in Streptococcus pneumoniae. He did a second postdoc with Laurence Rahme at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School studying modulation of Drosophila innate immunity by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Between 2002-2006 he was a research assistant professor under Frank McCormack at the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, studying lung-bacterial pathogen interactions. He joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006, where he is currently Professor of Pathobiology.

WOOSUK CHOI

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

EMAIL: wchoi38@illinois.edu

Brief biography. Woosuk, a former graduate student of the lab, officially rejoined our team as a postdoctoral researcher in January 2026.

SOOK YIN CHONG

GRADUATE STUDENT

EMAIL: sychong2@illinois.edu

Brief biography. Sook Yin is originally from Malaysia. She completed her BS in the Department of Agronomy and MS in Microbiology at the Institute of Food Science and Technology, both from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan. She joined the lab as a PhD student in 01/2022. Her thesis projects focus on the host-pathogen interactions between Streptococcus pneumoniae competence regulon-regulated virulence and lung.

SHI QIAN LEW

GRADUATE STUDENT

EMAIL: sqlew2@illinois.edu

Brief biography. Shi Qian is originally from Malaysia. He completed his BS and MS in the Department of Biochemical Science and Technology, Division of Microbiology, from the National Taiwan University, Taiwan. He joined the lab as a PhD student in 01/2022. His thesis projects focus on the regulation of airway mucus secretion in the diseased lungs.

CONG (ARYA) WU

GRADUATE STUDENT

Description: Arya is originally from Sichuan China. She completed her DVM and M.S. at the Chinese Agricultural University in Beijing, China, working on diagnostic viral immunology. She joined the lab as a PhD student in 08/2023. Her thesis projects focus on the regulation of airway mucus secretion in the diseased lungs by novel transcription factors.