Position Title
Student Trainee
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, School of Medicine
Graduate Program Affiliations
Preceptor
Megan DennisGraduate Program Affiliations
Research
Autism comorbidity with an enlarged brain or "ASD-DM" is found in 15% of boys with autism, resulting in more severe cognitive impairment, reduced IQ, and more managed care than the average autism lifetime cost of 1.3 million dollars. Through sequencing the genomes of patients with ASD-DM and unaffected family members, we have found 138 candidate genes, many of which have unknown function or relation to ASD, carrying mutations that may be causal. To functionally characterize all of these genes at scale to not only find new candidates to help diagnosis efforts but also uncover ASD etiology that can later be validated in more costly but relevant human models, I am pairing CRISPR-based gene editing approaches with behavioral, morphometric, and cellular characterization of the high-throughput and established neurodevelopmental disorder model, Zebrafish.