Graduate Student - Ph.D.

Molecular Biology

Quantitative and Computational Biology

Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)

Joshua D. Rabinowitz, Olga Troyanskaya

I'm interested in 1) how metabolism and gene expression regulate one another, and 2) why there are apparently redundant genes in metabolic networks.

Cells are able to sense what nutrients are available and in what amounts, in order to plan appropriately for the future. Understanding these processes is critical for metabolic engineering (e.g., biofuel production) as well as medicine (e.g., tumor development, in which cellular metabolism becomes dysregulated to allow for rapid growth). My research focuses on what molecules cells are able to sense, how these molecules are sensed, and how metabolic signals inform cellular decisions such as setting the growth rate or exiting the cell cycle. Furthermore, I am also interested in the regulation of apparently redundant metabolic enzymes, and how these enzymes benefit the cell. To answer these questions, I am using both computational (e.g. machine learning, statistical models) and experimental techniques (e.g. competition experiments, barcode sequencing).

2005 iGEM team member, Harvard University

2009 ISMB Travel Fellowship (Stockholm)

2008 ISMB Travel Fellowship (Toronto)

2006 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, honorable mention