Education / Graduate Education / PhD Programs / Biomedical Genetics and Genomics / Events / Genetics Day

34th Annual Genetics Day

Monday, April 17, 2023
9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Class of '62 Auditorium and Sarah Flaum Atrium

Genetics Day Poster Registration for 2023

20^th Annual Fred Sherman Lecture

Featuring Keynote Speaker: Julius Brennecke, Ph.D.
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Vienna, Austria

His talk is entitled “Evolution of endogenous retroviruses in Drosophila”.

Visit Dr. Brennecke's Lab Webpage

Poster Prizes

Cash prizes will be awarded to a select group of Genetics Day Poster presenters. Details on these cash prizes will be released in the coming weeks.

To be eligible for the award competition and included in the poster session, abstracts must be submitted via our poster registration form by 5pm on Monday, April 3rd.

Genetics Day Schedule

34th ANNUAL GENETICS DAY

Monday, April 17th, 2023
9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Class of '62 Auditorium & Sarah Flaum Atrium

9:30 – 9:40 a.m.
Michael Welte, Ph.D. – Department of Biology
Welcome

9:40 – 10:05 a.m.
Amanda Larracuente, Ph.D. – Department of Biology
“Rapid centromere reorganization in Drosophila”

10:05 – 10:30 a.m.
Bin Zhang, Ph.D. – Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
“Neocentromere for Chromosome Writing”

10:30 – 10:45 a.m.

Jessica Ciesla – Graduate Student, Biochemistry.

“Proximity labeling reveals human cytomegalovirus ul26 protein interacts with innate immune system regulator pias1 to support viral replication.”

10:45 – 11:00 a.m.

Emiliano Martí – Graduate Student, Biology.

“Derepression of r1 and r2 non-ltr retrotransposons causes hybrid incompatibility in drosophila”

11:00 – 11:30 a.m.
Coffee Break

11:30 – 11:55 a.m.
John Martinez, Ph.D. Candidate – Translational Biomedical Science
“Contributions of LINE1 Elements to Healthy Aging”

11:55 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.
Patrick J. Murphy, Ph.D. – Department of Biomedical Genetics
“Endogenous repetitive elements compete for epigenetic factors during early vertebrate development.”

12:30 – 2:30 p.m.
Poster Session, Flaum Atrium

3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
20th Annual Fred Sherman Lecture
Welcome by Dirk Bohmann, Ph.D. – Department of Biomedical Genetics

Featuring: Julius Brennecke, Ph.D. – Austrian Academy of Sciences
Institute of Molecular Biotechnology
Vienna, Austria

“Evolution of endogenous retroviruses in Drosophila”

4:15 p.m.
Poster Award Ceremony

Poster Submissions

GRADUATE STUDENTS
1.	DETERMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CIRCADIAN GENE EXPRESSION AND LUNG CANCER JAMISON BURCHETT, Julianna Cazarin de Menezes, and Brian Altman Biomedical Genetics.
2.	PROXIMITY LABELING REVEALS HUMAN CYTOMEGALOVIRUS UL26 PROTEIN INTERACTS WITH INNATE IMMUNE SYSTEM REGULATOR PIAS1 TO SUPPORT VIRAL REPLICATION JESSICA CIESLA, Catherine Seying, Joshua C. Munger Biomedical Genetics, Biochemistry.
3.	THE REPLICA SET METHOD: A ROBUST, ACCURATE, AND HIGH-THROUGHPUT APPROACH TO QUANTITATIVELY MEASURE CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS LIFESPAN ADAM CORNWELL, Jesse R. Llop, Peter Salzman, Juilee Thakar, And Andrew V. Samuelson Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
4.	TRMT1 IS NEEDED FOR TRNAS TO MAINTAIN THEIR FUNCTION WHICH HELP ORGANISM TO DEVELOP PROPERLY Kejia Zhang, CHENHONG DENG, Dr. Dragony Fu Biology
5.	THE INFLUENCE OF DNA STRUCTURE ON POLYMERASE PAUSING MCKAYLA FORD, Ching-Hua Shih, Paula Vertino Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
6.	HOST TATSF1 PROMOTES HIV INFECTIVITY BY UHM/ULM INTERACTIONS WITH THE VIRAL REV PROTEIN JUSTIN W. GALARDI, Steven Horner, Jordan Hurlbut, Justin R. Leach, Jeffrey M. Chamberlain, Jermaine L. Jenkins, Mary J. Pulvino, Stephen Dewhurst, Clara L. Kielkopf Center for RNA Biology, Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
7.	LONGEVITY-ASSOCIATED REGULATION OF SIRT6 BY AMPK TILTS THE BALANCE OF GROWTH VS STRESS RESPONSE JONATHAN GIGAS, Michael Meadow, Gregory Tombline, Eric Hillpot, Xiaoyu Wu, Max Zacher, Andrei Seluanov, Vera Gorbunova Biology
8.	IDENTIFICATION OF THE Z3 MODULE AS A MODULE OF THE INTEGRATOR COMPLEX MARYCLAIRE HASELEY & Eric Wagner Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
9.	3D-PRINTED BACILLUS NRRL B-14911 FOR THE DEGRADATION OF BIOPLASTICS IN MARINE ENVIRONMENTS LUYING HE, A. Meyer Biology
10.	ARYL HYDROCARBON RECEPTOR ACTIVATION ALTERS MONOCYTIC CELL RESPONSES DURING CORONAVIRUS AND INFLUENZA A VIRUS INFECTION ALICIA HEALEY, Kristina Fenner, Colleen O'Dell, B. Paige Lawrence MBI
11.	THE 1.9 Å BEAVER SIRTUIN6 CRYSTAL STRUCTURE ERIC HILLPOT, S. Ramachandran, A. Wolfe, A. Seluanov, V. Gorbunova Department of Biochemistry
12.	H2A.Z REGULATION OF CTCF BINDING AND HIGHER-ORDER CHROMATIN STRUCTURE SHAN HUA, Kristin Murphy, Fanju Meng, Patrick Murphy Biology
13.	MODELING CDK12 AND CDK13 LOSS-OF-FUNCTION TO INVESTIGATE THEIR ROLES IN ALTERNATIVE POLYADENYLATION AND NEOANTIGEN EXPRESSION MOLLY HULVER, Paul Boutz Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
14.	IDENTIFICATION AND STRUCTURAL BASIS OF A POTENTIAL LICENSING FACTOR OF THE INTEGRATOR CLEAVAGE MODULE MADELINE K. JENSEN, Min-Han Lin, Nathan D. Elrod, Kelsey Williams, Christöph Proschel, Liang Tong, Eric J. Wagner Department of Biochemistry
15.	THE ROLE OF SLC6A6 (TAUT) IN BONE FORMATION AND MAINTENANCE Benjamin J. Rodems, CHRISTINA KAZSUBA, Sonali Sharma, Emily R. Quarato, Takashi Ito, Roman Eliseev, Laura M. Calvi, and Jeevisha Bajaj Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
16.	THROMBOCYTOPENIA INDEPENDENTLY LEADS TO MONOCYTE IMMUNE DYSFUNCTION CHEN LI, Sara Ture, Benjamin Nieves-Lopez, Sara Blick-Nitko, Preeti Maurya, Alison Livada, Tyler Stahl, Minsoo Kim, Anthony Pietropaoli, Craig Morrell Department of Pharmacology and Physiology
17.	DEREPRESSION OF R1 AND R2 NON-LTR RETROTRANSPOSONS CAUSES HYBRID INCOMPATIBILITY IN DROSOPHILA EMILIANO MARTÍ, Christina A. Muirhead, Beatriz Navarro Dominguez, Benjamin E. Goulet, Lori Wright, Daven C. Presgraves Biology
18.	ULTRASENSITIVE CAS13A-BASED DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS AND NEW DESIGN STRATEGIES FOR SINGLE-NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISM DETECTION ADRIAN M. MOLINA VARGAS, Raven Osborn, Andrew Cameron, Dwight Hardy, Souvik Sinha, Pablo R. Arantes, Giulia Palermo, Mitchell R. O'Connell Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
19.	EARLY HETEROCHROMATIN FORMATION ON REPETITVE ELEMENTS IS ESSENTIAL FOR PRECISE DEVELOPMENTAL TIMING DUY NGUYEN, Patrick Murphy Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
20.	MITIGATING ONSET OF CONGENITAL MYOPATHY WITH EXERCISE THOMAS N. O'CONNOR, N. Zhao, M. He, L. Groom, L. Pietrangelo, C. Liang, H. Orciuoli, S. Malik, F. Protasi, R. T. Dirksen Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
21.	INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHEMOSENSORY NEURONS AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM IN THE MAIN OLFACTORY EPITHELIUM (MOE) R.E. OWENS, V. Haran, C. Chu, JP Meeks, and RK. Rowe Toxicology
22.	4-AMINOPYRIDINE IS A POTENTIAL THERAPY FOR MULTIPLE ADVERSE EFFECTS OF PACLITAXEL LUDIA PACK, M. Demagistris, D. Milek, J. Leckenby, M. Noble Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
23.	NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO INVESTIGATE RNA-CHROMATIN INTERACTIONS BRANDON PARK, Brandon Davis, Dr. Zamira Guerra Soares, Dr. Stephano Mello, Dr. Mitchell O'Connell, Dr. Patrick Murphy Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
24.	THE ROLE OF PLATELET DERIVED GROWTH FACTOR RECEPTOR AND ARYL-HYDROCARBON RECEPTOR SIGNALING IN TED PATHOGENESIS CHARKIRA PATRICK, Dr. Collynn Woeller Immunology, Microbiology, & Virology
25.	CARDINAL IS A NUCLEAR LNCRNA THAT REPRESSES TCF-SRF-MEDIATED GENE TRANSCRIPTION BY CO-OCCUPYING SRF-BOUND GENE PROMOTERS IN THE HEART JESSICA PERCIACCANTE, Fnu Priyanka, Pornthida Poosala, Xiaorong Xu Parks, Tamlyn Thomas, and Douglas M. Anderson Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
26.	ATAC-CLOCK: AN AGING CLOCK BASED ON CHROMATIN ACCESSIBILITY Francesco Morandini, CHEYENNE RECHSTEINER, Kevin Perez, Viviane Praz, Guillermo Lopez Garcia, Laura Hinte, Ferdinand von Meyenn, Alejandro Ocampo Biology
27.	NEUROGENETIC MECHANISMS UNDERLYING SEXUALLY DIMORPHIC BEHAVIORAL STATES IN C. ELEGANS GREGORY REILLY, C. Bainbridge, J. Wang, D. Portman The Department of Neuroscience
28.	LOSS OF ATAXIA-TELANGIECTASIA MUTATED EXACERBATES MOTOR COORDINATION DEFECTS FOLLOWING OXIDATIVE INSULT MALEELO SHAMAMBO, Sheona Fujimori, Lauren Suh, Mark Noble, Chris Proschel, and Margot Mayer-Proschel The Department of Neuroscience
29.	THE MECHANISM OF HISTONE EXCHANGE BETWEEN LIPID DROPLETS ALICIA SHIPLEY, Asmita Dutta, Pakinee Phromsiri, Michael Welte Biology
30.	OPTICOLI: SELF-ASSEMBLED BACTERIAL MICROLENSES FOR OPTICAL APPLICATIONS LYNN M. SIDOR, A. Meyer Biology
31.	REGULATION OF TRANSCRIPTION BY HISTONE DEMETHYLASE KDM5B IN BREAST CANCER ZACHARY SMITH, McKayla Ford, Christina Davidson, Ching-Hua Shih, Paula Vertino Department of Biochemistry
32.	TRANSCIPTION FACTOR NFIL3 REGULATES THE CD8 T CELL IMMUNE RESPONSE IN INFLUENZA MIKE SPORTIELLO, Allison Ryan, Cooper Sailer, David Oleksyn, Yuhang Shi, Jim Miller, Ruth Serra-Moreno, Taylor Jones, Adam Geber, David Topham. Microbiology and Immunology.
33.	TORC1 INACTIVATION LIMITS VIRAL INFECTION THROUGH THE ALTERED REGULATION OF AGING-RELATED EFFECTOR PATHWAYS IN CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS IAN STONE, Yun Zhang, Andrew Samuelson Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
34.	DRUG-INDUCED P53 ACTIVATION INHIBITS PRECANCEROUS TRANSFORMATION JENNIFER TWARDOWSKI, Stephano Spano Mello Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
35.	PHOSPHOPROTEOMIC STRATEGY TO IDENTIFY TARGETS OF THE KINASE HPK-1 IN CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS ZACHARY WARD Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
36.	MONITORING FATTY ACID TRAFFICKING IN FOLLICLES REVEALS A CRITICAL ROLE FOR DGAT1/MIDWAY IN PROTECTING MITOCHONDRIAL INTEGRITY ROGER WHITE and Michael Welte Biology
37.	EFFECTS OF IGE-MEDIATED ALLERGIC STIMULATION ON VIRUS-SPECIFIC CD4+ T CELL ACTIVATION JINGYI WU, Bailey Matthews, Regina Rowe Biomedical Genetics and Genomics
38.	THE SUMO PROTEASE ULP-1 IS A KEY REGULATOR OF STRESS RESPONSE, PROTEOSTASIS, AND LONGEVITY IN CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS SIFAN YANG, Andrew V Samuelson Biology, Biomedical Genetics & Genomics
39.	T CELL SUBSETS ALTERED IN A MURINE ALZHEIMER'S MODEL SUPERIMPOSED WITH LATENT U94A JUSTIN YOUNGYUNPIPATKUL, Chris Pröschel, Margot Mayer-Pröschel Biomedical Genetics & Genomics
40.	MECHANISM OF SEXUAL MATURATION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM IN THE C. ELEGANS MALE JIARUI ZHANG, Carlos Diaz-Balzac, Maria Lazaro-Pena, Douglas S. Portman Biology

POSTDOC STUDENTS
41.	SEXUALLY DIMORPHIC NUTRIENT-DEPENDENT BEHAVIORAL PRIORITIZATION IN C. ELEGANS CHANCE BAINBRIDGE, Gregory Reilly, Douglas S. Portman Department of Biomedical Genetics
42.	THE MYC ONCOPROTEIN DRIVES CIRCADIAN CLOCK DISRUPTION IN THE LUNG: IMPLICATIONS EARLY IN LUNG CARCINOGENESIS. JULIANA CAZARIN, Siti Noor Ain Binti Ahmad Shahidan, Rachel E. DeRollo, Brian Altman Department of Biomedical Genetics
43.	INVESTIGATING ENHANCER AND PROTEIN DIVERGENCE AT FOLLISTATIN PARALOGS UNDERLYING GENETIC ASSIMILATION OF WING PLASTICITY KEVIN DEEM, H. Asma, M. Halfon, J. Brisson Biology
44.	AN IMMUNGLOBULIN CELL ADHESION JUNCTION MODULE MAINTAINS EPITHELIAL INTEGRITY TARA M FINEGAN, Christian Cammarota, Dan T Bergstralh Biology
45.	EXTRACELLULAR GLUTATHIONE CATABOLISM AS AN ALTERNATIVE CYST(E)INE SOURCE IN CANCER HECHT F, Zocchi M, Tuttle E, Asantewaa G, Scales T, Alimohammadi F, Ward N, Denicola G, Harris IS Department of Biology, River Campus U of R.
46.	LONGEVITY IN BATS: EFFICIENT DNA REPAIR IS LINKED TO CHROMATIN REMODELING ANATOLY KOROTKOV, Nalani Miller, Emerson Jenen, Zhizhong Zheng, Fathima Athar, J Yuyang Lu, Julia Ablaeva, Gregory Tombline, Emma Teeling , Richard A. Miller, Andrei Seluanov, Vera Gorbunova. Department of Biology.
47.	COMPETITION FOR H2A.Z BETWEEN GENES AND REPETITIVE ELEMENTS SENSITIZES DEVELOPING EMBRYOS TO INNATE IMMUNE STIMULATION FANJU MENG, K. Murphy, C. Makowski, P. Murphy Department of Biomedical Genetics
48.	MULTIPLE GENES OF CANDIDA ALBICANS INFLUENCING ECHINOCANDIN SUSCEPTIBILITY IN CASPOFUNGIN-ADAPTED MUTANTS SUDISHT K. SAH, Soumyaroop Bhattacharya, Anshuman Yadav, Farha Husain, Aissatou B. K. T. Ndiaye, Michael D. Kruppa, Jeffrey J. Hayes, Elena Rustchenko Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
49.	C19ORF12 ORTHOLOG NAZO - AN NBIA ASSOCIATED GENE IS REQUIRED FOR LIPID HOMEOSTASIS IN DROSOPHILA GUT. PERINTHOTTATHIL SREEJITH, Sara Lolo, Kristen R. Patten, Maduka Gunasinghe1, Rajnish Bharadwaj Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
50.	REDUCTION OF SATELLITE DNA TRANSCRIPTION ENHANCES DRIVE IN SEGREGATION DISTORTION XIAOLU WEI, Amanda Larracuente Biology
51.	CANDIDA ALBICANS STRAINS ADAPTED TO CASPOFUNGIN DUE TO ANEUPLOIDY BECOME HIGHLY TOLERANT UNDER CONTINUED DRUG PRESSURE FARHA HUSAIN, Anshuman Yadav, Sudisht K. Sah, Jeffrey J. Hayes And Elena Rustchenko Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
52.	SUMO PEPTIDASE ULP-4 REGULATES THE ANTIVIRAL INNATE IMMUNITY BY DESUMOYLATION OF RIG-1 HOMOLOG DRH-1 IN CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS YUN ZHANG, A. Samuelson Department of Biomedical Genetics

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
53.	PROTEIN COEVOLUTION PREDICTS KNOWN AND NOVEL NUCLEAR-MITOCHONDRIAL INTERACTIONS ALEC KINGSLEY and John H. Werren Biology
54.	CENTROMERE POLYMORPHISMS IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER MIRAZ SADI, Cécile Courret, Amanda Larracuente Biology
55.	DO PROTEINS WITH CORRELATED EVOLUTIONARY RATES HAVE SHARED FUNCTIONS? SIMONE SPANDAU, Moran Guo, Dr. John H. Werren Department of Biology, School of Arts and Sciences
56.	INVESTIGATING MUD: ISOFORM EXPRESSION AND FUNCTION XUKE WANG, T. Finegan, K. Deem, N. Lowe, R. Tan, D. Bergstralh Department of Biology, University of Rochester

STAFF
57.	SPLICING REGULATION AS A MOLECULAR DRIVER OF BASAL PANCREATIC CANCER ZAMIRA GUERRA SOARES, Dakarai Esgdaille, Wenjia Wang, Jennifer Twardowski, Emily Berry, Aram Hezel, Stephano Mello. Department of Biomedical Genetics
58.	IDO1 IS A NOVEL IMPRINTED GENE THAT PLAYS A ROLE IN PREGNANCY MAINTENANCE PHILIP SPINELLI, Sierra Falcone, Martha Susiarjo Department of Environmental Medicine
59.	THE FUNCTION OF HEAT SHOCK FACTOR IN DROSOPHILA DEVELOPMENT JINGHONG (JAMES) TANG, M. Welte Biology

FACULTY
60.	AT LEAST 10 GENES ON CHROMOSOME 5 OF CANDIDA ALBICANS ARE DOWNREGULATED IN CONCERT TO CONTROL CELL WALL AND TO CONFER ADAPTATION TO CASPOFUNGIN Sudisht K Sah, Anshuman Yadav, ELENA RUSTCHENKO Biochemistry and Biophysics

ORGANIZATIONS
61.	CENTER FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH TECHNOLOGIES (CART) This is an informational poster about the core facilities available for researcher use within the University