Asal Taher is a UC Irvine School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences PhD in Pharmacological Sciences student and alumna of the BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences program.
After graduating high school, Taher enrolled in community college, where she took an interest in organic chemistry and biochemistry lab classes. In addition to her studies, she was working as a pharmacy technician at the time.
“I found myself trying to understand the medications I was dispensing, using what I was learning in my biology and chemistry classes. Those experiences led me to apply to the BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences program at UCI,” said Taher.
She joined the Paegel Lab as an undergraduate student, where she significantly contributed to the team’s work of applying miniaturization to drug discovery research.
“Asal has done research with me into translation inhibitor discovery,” said Dr. Brian Paegel, Principal Investigator of the Paegel Lab and the UCI School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences’ Associate Dean of Research. “She has fabricated new devices that we use in DNA-encoded compound library screening.”
Taher’s experiences in the Paegel Lab deepened her enthusiasm for pharmaceutical sciences research and pushed her to continue her education as a PhD in Pharmacological Sciences student.
“As an undergraduate researcher in the Paegel Lab, I had the opportunity to work alongside a graduate student to miniaturize and scale drug discovery using microfluidics and DNA-encoded libraries. As I was nearing the end of my undergraduate studies, I found myself wanting to keep learning and contributing to pharmaceutical research. Therefore, I decided to pursue a PhD,” she said.
Taher graduated from the BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences program in June of 2024. Now, as a PhD student, Taher is continuing her research in the Paegel Lab and focusing on furthering her scientific knowledge.
“The PhD program has been going very well. It’s definitely challenging, but I am learning a lot in the classroom and the lab. I have been rotating in the Paegel Lab for the past four weeks, working on capturing translation proteins onto small particles, which can lead to developing new cellular assays based on this technique,” she shared. “I plan to take advantage of every minute to learn and grow as a researcher.”
