Post-Doctoral Fellow

University of Connecticut Health Center (Farmington, CT)

Graduate Student - Ph.D.

Biochemistry & Biophysics

University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)

Adjunct faculty

Biology

University of San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)

Brenton Graveley, Christine Guthrie

In essence, I am interested in how genes work and how they evolve over time.

In my current research, I study the role of introns in gene expression including their potential to regulate gene expression and chromatin structure.

Eukaryotic genes are littered with intervening sequences, or introns, that must be removed from pre-RNA transcripts before they can be properly translated. Despite their ubiquitous presence, the functions of introns have long remained mysterious. Even in the tractable and well studied eukaryote, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, there are still only hints as to the biological function of its few hundred introns. We know even less about human introns. My work involves experimentation in both of these organisms to better understand the important roles of spliceosomal introns.

1) To study the importance of introns in gene expression and fitness, I have created a large panel of yeast strains, each with a single intron precisely deleted. By expression profiling, I have identified introns in yeast required for normal gene expression.

2) To study the relationship between chromatin structure and intron/exon architecture, I have taken advantage of next-generation sequence data to study how chromatin structure differs between introns and exons. Surprisingly, many chromatin marks are specifically associated with introns and exons. How these marks are specified and their functions in gene expression is has become a very active area of research.

2009-2010 Laboratory Instructor at the University of San Francisco

2002-2004 Research Assistant, Brigham and Women's Hospital