Education / Graduate Education / PhD Programs / Genetics, Development, and Stem Cells / Events / Genetics Day

33rd Annual Genetics Day

Monday, May 16, 2022
9:30am to 4:00 p.m.
Class of '62 Auditorium and Sarah Flaum Atrium

19^th Annual Fred Sherman Lecture

Li-Xing Man, MSc, MD, MPA photo

Peter Walter, Ph.D.

Featuring Keynote Speaker: Peter Walter, Ph.D., SVP & Institute Director Altos Labs - Bay Area Institute of Science, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Francisco Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics.

His talk is entitled “Targeting the Cell’s Stress Pathways for Therapeutic Benefit.”

Dr. Walter's Lab Webpage

Poster Prizes

At this year’s Genetics Day the following poster prizes will be awarded: two $250 prizes will be award to Graduate Students and two additional $250 prizes will be awarded to Postdocs. Another $250 prize will be awarded to poster entries from others, including undergraduates, staff, and faculty.

To be eligible for the award competition and included in the poster session, abstracts must be submitted at our Poster Registration link by 5pm on Monday, May 2^nd.

Also for this year: Two of the submitted abstracts will be selected for a 10 minute oral presentation to be delivered in the morning session of the Genetics Day program. The presenters of these short talks will receive a special prize of $500 each. Please indicate on your abstract submission whether you would be like to be considered for the short talk competition.

Genetics Day Schedule

33rd ANNUAL GENETICS DAY
Monday, May16th, 2022
9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Class of '62 Auditorium & Sarah Flaum Atrium

Genetics Day Zoom Link

Michael Welte, Ph.D. – Department of Biology
Welcome
Patrick Murphy, Ph.D. - Morning Session Chair

9:40 – 10:05 a.m.
Sina Ghaemmaghami, Ph.D.
Department of Biology
“The influence of the ribosome on co-translational protein folding”

10:05 – 10:30 a.m.
Anne Meyer, Ph.D.
Department of Biology
“Opticoli: Self-assembled bacterial microlenses for optical applications”

10:30 – 10:45 a.m.
Fabio Hecht Castro Medeiros, Ph.D.
Postdoc, Department of Biomedical Genetics
“Extracellular glutathione catabolism as an alternative cyst(e)ine source in cancer”

10:45 – 11:00 a.m.
Frances Tolibzoda Zakusilo
Graduate Student, Department of Biology, NGP
“Comparative study of oxidative stress restance in naked mole rat, mouse, degu, and human astroglia”

11:00 – 11:30 a.m.
Coffee Break

11:30 – 11:55 a.m.
Ruth Serra-Moreno, Ph.D.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
“How does SARS-CoV-2 generate replication organelles?”

11:55 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.
Thu Le, M.D.
Department of Medicine
“GSTM1 in kidney disease: from the bench to the clinic and dining table”

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

3:00 – 4:00 p.m.
19th Annual Fred Sherman Lecture
Welcome by Dirk Bohmann, Ph.D. Department of Biomedical Genetics
Introduction from David Goldfarb, Ph.D. Department of Biology
Featuring: Peter Walter, Ph.D.
SVP & Institute Director, Altos Labs - Bay Area Institute of Science
Distinguished Professor Emeritus
University of California, San Francisco
Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
“Targeting the Cell’s Stress Pathways for Therapeutic Benefit”

4:15 p.m.
Poster Award Ceremony

Poster Submissions

GRADUATE STUDENTS
1.	INVESTIGATING DIFFERENTIAL INTRON SENSITIVITY TO CORE SPLICEOSOME FACTORS THAT ARE AMPLIFIED OR DELETED IN DEVELOPMENTAL SYNDROMES AND CANCER Mohammed Ali, Paul Boutz Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
2.	THE ROLE OF GLUTATHIONE IN LIPID METABOLISM Gloria Asantewaa, Pyo Kang, Emily Tuttle, Leonid Smorodintsev-Schiller, Matt Ingalls, David Brown, Hayley Chang, Zachary Smith, Katherine Rodriguez, Sarah Whelan, Xenia Schafer, Ying Chen, Vasilis Vasiliou, Joan Brugge, Calvin Cole, Dirk Brenner, Catherine Ovitt, Joshua Munger, Alessandro Rufini, Gina DeNicola, Isaac Harris Department of Biochemistry, Department of Biomedical Genetics
3.	INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF NEAT1 IN RESTRICTING THE FORMATION OF PANCREATIC CANCER Emily Berry, Zamira Guerra Soares, Stephano Mello. Department of Biomedical Genetics
4.	MECHANICAL BASIS FOR EPITHELIALIZATION Christian Cammarota, Mimi Jung, Nicole Dawney, Alexander G. Fletcher, Dan Bergstralh Department of Physics and Astronomy
5.	EPIGENETIC REGULATION OF THE 7SK SNRNP IN POLYMERASE PAUSE CONTROL Eric Cefaloni, Christina Davidson, Ching-Hua Shih, Priya Kapoor-Vazirani, Paula Vertino Department of Biology, Department of Biomedical Genetics
6.	HUMAN CYTOMEGALOVIRUS UL26 PROTEIN INTERACTS WITH HOST INNATE IMMUNE FACTORS TO SUPPORT VIRAL REPLICATION Jessica Ciesla, Joshua C. Munger Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
7.	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, Andrew V. Samuelson Department of Biomedical Genetics
8.	CHARACTERIZING EPITHELIAL MONOLAYER DEVELOPMENT IN VITRO Nicole Dawney, Christian Cammarota, Qingyuan Jia, Alicia Shipley, Joseph Glickowski, Dan Bergstralh Department of Biology
9.	NVESTIGATION OF NEAT1'S MECHANISM OF SPLICING FACTOR REGULATION VIA DETAINED INTRON LEVELS Dakarai Esgdaille, Paul Boutz, Stephano Mello Department of Biomedical Genetics
10.	RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN H2AZ, H3K4ME3, AND KDM5B CORRELATES WITH TRANSCRIPTIONAL DIRECTIONALITY McKayla Ford, Zachary Smith, Ching-hua Shih, Christina Davidson, Patrick Murphy, Paula Vertino Department of Biomedical Genetics
11.	INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF RNA HELICASES IN SPLICING CHANGES CAUSED BY CANCER ASSOCIATED SF3B1 MUTATIONS Leon Harvey, Mohammed Ali, Paul Boutz Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
12.	IDENTIFICATION AND STRUCTURAL BASIS OF A NOVEL CELLULAR INHIBITOR OF THE INTEGRATOR CLEAVAGE MODULE Madeline Jensen, Min-Han Lin, Nathan D. Elrod, Liang Tong, Eric J. Wagner Department of Biochemistry
13.	mRNA TRANSLATION-REGULATORY FUNCTION OF RNA-BINDING PROTEIN PRRC2B Feng Jiang, Omar Hedaya, Peng Yao Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
14.	INSIGHTS INTO THE ROLE OF POST-TRANSCRIPTIONAL MECHANISMS FOR EFFECTOR FUNCTION REGULATION AND HOMEOSTASIS IN MEMORY CD8+ T CELLS Ashwin B.R. Kumar, Adam Geber, Kris Lambert, Emma Reilly, Ciaran Daly, Jessica West, Juilee Thakar, Paul Boutz, Andrew Grimson, David Topham Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Department of Microbiology and Immunology
15.	HEXIM1 AND GATA1 COOPERATE TO REGULATE ERYTHROID GENE EXPRESSION AND FUNCTION Xiurui Lv, Zachary Murphy, Kristin Murphy, Michael Getman, Laurie Steiner Department of Biomedical Genetics
16.	LEVERAGING TARGETED PROTEOMICS TO ELUCIDATE CONSERVED MECHANISMS OF SIRT6 REGULATION AND DEVELOP NOVEL THERAPEUTICS FOR AGE-RELATED DISEASE Michael E. Meadow, Joseph Irvin, J. Yuyang Lu, Kyle Swovick, Kevin Welle, Jonathan Gigas, Eric Hillpot, Gregory Tombline, Ruiyue Tan, Ali Biashad, Yuliya Ablaeva, Jennifer Hryhorenko, Nimish Mohile, Andrei Seluanov, Vera Gorbunova, Sina Ghaemmaghami Department of Biology
17.	CONTROLLING GENE EXPRESSION THROUGH RNA STRUCTURES OR ANTISENSE OLIGONUCLEOTIDES Omar M. Hedaya, Feng Jiang, Kadiam Venkata Subbaiah, Li Xie, Jiangbin Wu, Darren Khor, Peng Yao Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
18.	UNDERSTANDING GUIDE-RNA DESIGN RULES FOR EFFICIENT AND SPECIFIC CAS13 RNA-TARGETING Adrian M. Molina Vargas, Souvik Sinha, Pablo R. Arantes, Giulia Palermo, Mitchell R. O'Connell Department of Biomedical Genetics, Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
19.	LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF AUDITORY DYSFUNCTION IN ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE MICE 5xFAD Daxiang Na, Patricia White Department of Biomedical Genetics
20.	DISCS LARGE LICENSES PINS TO ORIENT MITOTIC SPINDLES Kathryn Neville, Anne Benraiss, Tara Finegan, Dan Bergstralh Department of Biology
21.	ENDURANCE EXERCISE ATTENUATES JUVENILE IRRADIATION-INDUCED SKELETAL MUSCLE FUNCTIONAL DECLINE AND MITOCHONDRIAL STRESS Thomas N. O'Connor, Jacob G. Kallenbach, Haley M. Orciuoli, Nicole D. Paris, John F. Bachman, Carl J. Johnston, Eric Hernady, Jacqueline P. Williams, Robert T. Dirksen, Joe V. Chakkalakal Department of Biomedical Genetics
22.	Sox100B & SMOOTH MUSCLE MORPHOGENESIS IN DROSOPHILA Rachel Piselli, Benoit Biteau Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Department of Biomedical Genetics
23.	NEUROGENETIC MECHANISMS UNDERLYING SEXUALLY DIMORPHIC BEHAVIORAL STATES IN C. ELEGANS Gregory Reilly, Douglas S. Portman Department of Neuroscience
24.	OPTICOLI: SELF-ASSEMBLED BACTERIAL MICROLENSES FOR OPTICAL APPLICATIONS Lynn M. Sidor, Anne S. Meyer Department of Biology
25.	REGULATION OF TRANSCRIPTION BY HISTONE DEMETHYLASE KDM5B IN BREAST CANCER Zachary Smith, McKayla Ford, Christina Davidson, Paula Vertino Department of Biochemistry
26.	FLUXIMPLIED: A NOVEL BIOINFORMATIC METHOD INTEGRATES RATE LIMITING STEPS AND DIFFERENTIAL EXPRESSION FOR PATHWAY ANALYSIS Mike Sportiello, Adam Geber, Rohith Palli, A. Karim Embong, Nathan G. Laniewski, David J. Topham Department of Microbiology and Immunology
27.	CRITICAL ROLE OF MTORC1 IN ENDOTHELIAL BARRIER REGULATION Imran Tahir, Arshad Rahman Department of Pediatrics (Neonatology)
28.	THE EFFECT OF THE RIBOSOME ON THE THERMODYNAMIC STABILITY OF NASCENT PROTEINS Ruiyue Tan, Ethan Walker, John Bettinger, Michael Meadow, Sina Ghaemmaghami Department of Biology
29.	INHIBITION OF PRECANCEROUS TRANSFORMATION VIA DRUG-INDUCED P53 ACTIVATION Jennifer Twardowski, Thomas Heist, Stephano Spano Mello Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics
30.	THE SUMO PEPTIDASE ULP-4 IS ESSENTIAL FOR ORSAY VIRUS INFECTION IN CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS Yun Zang, Zachary Ward, Andrew Samuelson Department of Biomedical Genetics
31.	REDUCTION OF SATELLITE DNA TRANSCRIPTION ENHANCES DRIVE IN SEGREGATION DISTORTION Xiaolu Wei, Amanda Larracuente Department of Biomedical Genetics
32.	FATTY ACID TRAFFICKING DURING DROSOPHILA OOGENESIS Roger White, Michael Welte Department of Biology
33.	SUV420H2 REGULATION OF COLLECTIVE INVASION IN TRIPLE-NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER Emily C. Whitt, Paula M. Vertino Department of Pathology
34.	DECIPHERING EIF2B5 DEFICIENCY IN VANISHING WHITE MATTER DISEASE LI XIE, Sun Yu, Garrick Salois, Kelsey Williams, Chris Pröschel Department of Biomedical Genetics
35.	COMPARATIVE STUDY OF OXIDATIVE STRESS RESTANCE IN NAKED MOLE RAT, MOUSE, DEGU, AND HUMAN ASTROGLIA Frances Tolibzoda Zakusilo Department of Biology, Neuroscience Graduate Program
36.	U2 SNRNA PSEUDOURIDYLATION IN THE RECOGNITION OF BRANCH-SITE SEQUENCE DURING PRE-MRNA SPLICING Rui Zhang, Yi-Tao Yu Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
37.	INTERPLAY BETWEEN HMGB PROTEIN HMO1 AND HISTONE H3 IN DNA DAMAGE RESPONSE IN BUDDING YEAST Jiarui Zhang, Xin Bi Department of Biology
38.	GLUTATHIONE CATABOLISM MAY BE A CRITICAL AMINO ACID SOURCE FOR CANCER CELL SURVIVAL Marco Zocchi, Fabian Hecht, Leonid Smorodintsev-Schiller, Emily Tuttle, Katherine Rodriguez, Gloria Asantewaa, YP. Kang, Y. Chen, JJ. Zoeller, JS. Brugge, V. Vasiliou, A. Muir, GM. DeNicola, Isaac Harris Department of Biomedical Genetics

POSTDOC STUDENTS
39.	SEX DIFFERENCES IN NUTRIENT-DEPENDENT BEHAVIOR IN C. ELEGANS Chance Bainbridge, Douglas S. Portman Department of Biomedical Genetics
40.	ALR-1/ARX REGULATES SYNAPTOGENESIS AND GABAERGIC NEURONAL DIFFERENTIATION BY DISTINCT TRANSCRIPTIONAL REGULATORY PATHWAYS Carlos A. Diaz-Balzac, María I. Lázaro-Peña, Douglas S. Portman Department Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Department of Biomedical Genetics
41.	EIF4G2 MEDIATES SPECIFIC MRNA TRANSLATIONAL CONTROL OF CARDIAC FIBROSIS Khor (Darren) Eng-Soon, Feng Jiang, Omar Hedaya, Peng Yao Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute
42.	EXTRACELLULAR GLUTATHIONE CATABOLISM AS AN ALTERNATIVE CYST(E)INE SOURCE IN CANCER Fabio Hecht, Marco Zocchi, Leonid Schiller, Isaac Harris Department of Biomedical Genetics
43.	PNPT1 MEDIATES NLRP3 INFLAMMASOME ACTIVATION BY MAVS AND METABOLIC REPROGRAMMING IN MACROPHAGES Chia George Hsu, Wenjia Li, Mark Sowden, Camila Lage Chávez, Bradford C. Berk Department of Medicine, Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute
44.	NEUROENDOCRINE CONTROL OF THE PROTEOSTATIC NETWORK BY HPK-1 DELAYS AGING Maria I. Lazaro-Pena, Carlos A. Diaz-Balzac, Ritika Das, Andrew V. Samuelson Department of Biomedical Genetics
45.	COMPETITION FOR H2A.Z BETWEEN GENES AND REPETITIVE ELEMENTS ESTABLISHES RESPONSE TO ANTI-VIRAL IMMUNE ACTIVATION Fanju Meng, Kristin Murphy, Claire Makowski, Patrick Murphy Department of Biomedical Genetics
46.	MTOR MAINTAINS VASCULAR INTEGRITY IN THE LUNG Michelle Warren Millar, Spencer A. Slavin, Mohammad Shadab, Rauf Najar, Zahra Mohammad, David A. Dean, Fabeha Fazal, Arshad Rahman Department of Pediatrics (Neonatology), Lung Biology and Disease Program
47.	ESSENTIAL ROLE OF MIRO1 IN MAINTAINING ENDOTHELIAL CELL INTEGRITY Rauf Ahmad Najar, Michelle Millar, Mohammad Shadab, Fabeha Fazal, Arshad Rahman Departments of Pediatrics, Lung Biology and Disease Program
48.	SPLEEN TYROSINE KINASE PHOSPHORYLATES VE-CADHERIN TO CAUSE ENDOTHELIAL BARRIER DISRUPTION IN ACUTE LUNG INJURY Mohammad Shadab, Spencer A. Slavin, Zahra Mahamed, Michelle W. Millar, Rauf A. Najar, Antony Leonard, Anthony Pietropaoli, David A. Dean, Fabeha Fazal, Arshad Rahman Departments of Pediatrics, Department of Medicine, Lung Biology and Disease Program
49.	THE ROLE OF SLC6A6 IN ACUTE MYELOID LEUKEMIA Benjamin J Rodems, Sonali Sharma, Erika Davidson, Jeevisha Bajaj James P. Wilmot Cancer Center

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
50.	MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES UNMASK CHROMATIN STATE REPROGRAMMING EVENTS IN TUNE WITH NEURAL CREST SPECIFICATION ACROSS EARLY ZEBRAFISH DEVELOPMENT Fabian Halblander Department of Biomedical Genetics
51.	MODELING SATELLITE DNA ORGANIZATION Sherif Negm, Amanda Larracuente Department of Biology
52.	MAKING OUT-OF-SAMPLE PREDICTIONS FROM UNSUPERVISED CLUSTERING OF SINGLE CELL RNASeq Lan Zhang, Andrew McDavid Department of Mathematics

STAFF
53.	A CENTENARIAN VARIANT OF SIRT6 ENHANCES GENOME MAINTENANCE ACTIVITY Matthew Simon, Jiping Yang, Eric, Early, Maria Zagorulya, Greg Tombline, Michael Van Meter, Stephan Emmrich, Paul D. Robbins, Jan Vijg, Andrei Seluanov, Yousin Suh, Vera Gorbunova Department of Biology

FACULTY
54.	ASSESSMENT OF PATIENT REPORTED NEEDS, PREFERENCES, AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES AFTER ATTENDING AN ONLINE SUPPORT GROUP FOR PERSONS WITH LYNCH SYNDROME Meghan Underhill-Blazey, Ashley Hendershot, Carol Lustig, Laura Kent, Mysti Geiger, Art DeCross James P. Wilmot Cancer Center
55.	AGE ASSOCIATED INDUCTION OF SENESCENT TRANSCRIPTIONAL PROGRAMS IN HUMAN GLIAL PROGENITOR CELLS John N. Mariani, Pernille Madsen, Benjamin Mansky, Nguyen Huynh, Nicholas J. Kuypers, Erin R. Kesel, Devin Chandler-Militello, Abdellatif Benraiss, Steven A. Goldman Department of Neurology
56.	BIALLELIC LOSS-OF-FUNCTION MUTATIONS IN THUMPD1 AFFECT TRNA ACETYLATION AND CAUSE A SYNDROMIC NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER Bogdan Polevoda, Kamel Awayda, Ning Tong, Jenna Lentini, Dragony Fu, Mitchell R. O'Connell Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Center for RNA Biology, Department of Biology
57.	PGC-1α SENSES THE CBC OF PRE-MRNA TO DICTATE THE FATE OF PROMOTER-PROXIMALLY PAUSED RNAPII Xavier Rambout, Hana Cho, Romeo Blanc, Qing Lyu, Joseph M. Miano, Joe V. Chakkalakal, Geoffrey M. Nelson, Hari K. Yalamanchili, Karen Adelman, Lynne E. Maquat Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
58.	TRANSGLUTAMINASE 2 INHIBITION PROMOTES RECOVERY AFTER SPINAL CORD INJURY: MODULATING THE ASTROGLIAL RESPONSE TO CNS INJURY Anissa Elahi, Jacen Emerson, Jacob Rudlong, Jeffrey W. Keillor, Garrick Salois, Adam Visca, Peter Girardi, Kelsey Williams, Gail V.W. Johnson, Chris Pröschel Department of Biomedical Genetics
59.	4-AMINOPYRIDINE PROVIDES RAPID AND SUSTAINED IMPROVEMENTS IN A MODEL OF THORACIC SPINAL CORD INJURY Heather Natola, Li Xie, Derick Peterson, Lu Wang, Susan Messing, Anissa Elahi, and Mark Noble, Chris Pröschel Department of Biomedical Genetics