The Spotlight series was created in 2009 as a way of building camaraderie in our department and as a way of communicating our unique departmental culture to prospective students and visitors. Featuring current graduate students, postdoctoral associates, technical staff, and administrative staff it showcases the broad interests and talent of our many department members. In April of 2015, we launched our first online version.
Archives: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015
2024 Spotlights
Jack Cutting
December 2024
My project looks at aging, and how it’s different in shorter-lived and longer-lived species. Specifically, I’m looking at a gene known as Sirt6 that has been shown to influence lifespan, and different variants that are found in different species. By looking how these variants are different, we can explore whether these differences contribute to longevity in longer-living species.
Kyle Berger
November 2024
I am currently investigating the biology of tRNA modifications. tRNA has a plethora of different chemical modifications that are important for its function. However, the effects of many of these individual tRNA modifications are not well understood. I am attempting to answer the question of how these modifications affect both tRNA structure and function.
Danielle Bennett
October 2024
I work in the Meyer lab group researching how to make hydrogen fuel from Shewanella oneidensis bacteria. The bacteria themselves come from lake Oneida here in New York. It’s an awesome setup – we use nanoparticles as a catalyst for the reaction and the bacteria provide electrons to produce hydrogen from water. My focus is more on materials science – I’m working on 3D printing setups and making conductive surfaces to make it more efficient.
Ruisi (Teresa) Qin
September 2024
I am currently a technician in the Wang Lab. Our studies focus on the organelle degradation pathway and organelle morphological changes in response to the cellular homeostasis disturbance. Most of our experiments are based on fission yeast cells S. pombe and mammalian cell culture.
Pakinee Phromsiri
August 2024
I am currently a graduate student in the Welte Lab in the Department of Biology. Our lab studies the diverse roles of lipid droplets in Drosophila. Once thought of as inert organelles, we now know they serve as sites of protein sequestration. One such protein, our lab has identified as the histone variant, H2Av. My project focuses on the effect of H2Av levels on developmental timing in early Drosophila embryos.
Hannah Chhibber
July 2024
I make fruit-fly food for several labs in the department.
Logan Edvalson
June 2024
I study how meiotic drives often evolve to target parts of the genome that have typically been labeled as “nonfunctional”. Doing this also helps me learn fundamental things about how chromatin is regulated in the male germline.
Chloe Couderc
May 2024
In my current role, I serve as a laboratory assistant in the Gorbunova lab. My responsibilities include helping lab members conduct their research, managing undergraduate student employees, engaging in vivarium and annex operations, and undertaking various additional duties in the lab.
Kevin Deem
April 2024
I am currently researching how aphids produce wingless offspring in different ways, and how that might be important for our understanding of morphological evolution. Asexual females produce wingless daughters in response to their environment. We think sexual males evolved a similar wingless phenotype using part of the same genetic pathway, but without input from the environment. Determining how this may have happened has important implications for our understanding of the origins of novel phenotypes and morphological diversity.
Anushka Jain
March 2024
I am a second year PhD student with Prof. Sina Ghaemmaghami. I am currently trying to establish single cell proteomics (SCP) in the lab, with the help of Mass Spec Resource lab at URMC. Single cell proteomics will help us capture the cellular heterogeneity that often gets lost when working with bulk amounts. We eventually plan on studying protein turnover using SCP.
Brian Jencik
February 2024
I grew up in a neighborhood with wetland trails running through it, and I spent a lot of time there growing up. Being around wilderness like that most of my life led to an interest in life sciences.
Jennifer Leigh
January 2024
I work full time as a technician in Dr. Robert Dirksen’s lab in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at the Medical Center, and am also a part time graduate student pursuing a Master’s degree through the Department of Biology. My lab studies the calcium dynamics and excitation-contraction coupling mechanisms that control skeletal muscle function, as well as the myopathies that arise when abnormalities in these processes occur. My project focuses on a disease called Tubular Aggregate Myopathy (TAM) that arises from mutations in proteins called Stim1 and Orai1 that are involved in Store Operated Calcium Entry. I am working on characterizing the Mitochondrial dysfunction in our G100S mouse model of TAM through quantitative assays as well as assessing their function through respiratory studies.