Research Experience
2023 - Current
2020 - 2023
As a Ph.D. student in Anne West’s lab in the department of Neurobiology at Duke University, I have worked towards investigating the chromatin mechanisms of gene regulation in post-mitotic cells, specifically murine cerebellar granule neurons. These exhibit a protracted period of post-mitotic neuronal maturation that involves the temporal coordination of different sets of genes that regulate the processes of migration, axon outgrowth, dendritogenesis and synaptogenesis.
Among a variety of approaches, I have used ChIP-seq and CUT&RUN to characterize the epigenome of a population of primary neurons with high throughput (This work is described here). I have generated and utilized lentiviral dCas9-fusion proteins to artificially alter chromatin at particular genomic loci. I have also processed and analyzed a variety of data obtained from ChIP-seq, RNA-seq and DNase-seq experiments.
I have also performed Hi-C on accessible regulatory DNA (HiCAR) to investigate dynamics in chromatin architecture in this system
Locasale Lab at Duke University
2018 - 2020
As a Ph.D. student in Jason Locasale’s lab in the department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke University, I worked towards understanding the interactions between cellular metabolism and chromatin regulation, in the context of cell-fate specification. Specifically I investigated the role of methionine, an essential amino acid, on histone methylation and its subsequent role in gene regulation. To this end, I utilized a combination of approaches involving cell culture, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and LC-MS-MS based metabolomics. I also briefly worked on a chemically-modified diet model using d. melanogaster to answer some of these questions.
Graduate School Rotations
2017 - 2018
Prior to joining my thesis lab, I did my graduate school rotations in the labs of Bruce Sullenger, in the department of Surgery; and Robert Lefkowitz, in the department of Biochemistry at Duke University. In the Sullenger Lab I worked on the use of RNA-aptamers as an anti-cancer therapeutic strategy in osteosarcomas. In the Lefkowitz Lab I worked on the molecular mechanisms involved in the downstream signaling events induced by B2-adrenergic receptor agonists.