Cooperative Ph.D. Training

Hometown: Bangalore, India
Undergrad Institution: University of California – Los Angeles
Undergrad major: B.S. Psychobiology and Marine Biology

What is your research focus?
I am investigating the variation in centromeric DNA and kinetochore proteins and its impact on chromosome segregation dynamics.

What question/problem do you hope to help solve as a scientist?
I will use my training in evolutionary genetics and genomics to contribute to the environmental protection or improving human health.

What do you like about training at JAX?
I like the collaborative scientific community, the hands on training from PIs and other scientists, and the accessibility to resources (computational, experimental, and educational).

Combines computational and wet lab techniques to investigate the impact of transposable elements on disease transcriptomes.

I am a Ph.D. candidate at Tufts University School of Medicine conducting my thesis research in the Tarchini Lab at JAX. I study the sensory cells of the inner ear that allow us to hear, balance, and orient ourselves in space. We are born with a sparse population of non-renewable sensory "hair" cells (named for their unique cytoskeletal architecture) that we must maintain across our lifespan. Many deafness-associated genetic variants affect hair cell structure, either during development in the case of congenital deafness or in adult maintenance in the case of age-related hearing loss. I hypothesize that certain factors integral to hair cell development remain involved into adulthood and contribute to the steady-state structural maintenance of these cells. My goal is to gain insight as to how we might preserve sensory cell function with age, thus extending the healthspan of our aging population. Elli is currently on the Korstanje T32.

I received my B.S. in bioengineering from the University of Maine. Immediately after graduation I joined the Munnamalai Lab as a research assistant and then a Postbaccalaureate Researcher . Currently, I am a predoc student in the University of Maine's GSBSE program. I am in interested in how cell fate and specific patterning is established during development, and I enjoy developing quantitative methods to better understand this. My project specifically investigates the influence of Wnt signaling on the patterning of the cochlear epithelium during early time points of development. I aim to characterize how disruptions in patterning early on can affect the proper formation of a mature cochlea.

What is your research focus?
I am interested in using computational analysis especially image analysis to understand how cancer cell populations function and evolve.

What do you like about training at JAX?
I am very lucky and grateful to be a trainee at JAX. I have so many resources, I feel very supported and I am always learning from my colleagues who are experts in different areas of computational analysis. Moreover, JAX implements a great learning environment by providing training courses, conferences and distinguished scientific talks.

Share something you have learned from your PI that makes you a better/wiser/more efficient scientist.
I joined Jeff Chuang’s lab because my research interests are very similar to his lab but, also because he is an amazing mentor. I have learned from him that no matter how challenging a research question might seem, there is always an answer: just read more, think harder and be patient.

My research is focused on identifying genetic therapeutic targets of age related cognitive declines using the Diversity Outbred mouse population. Using Diversity Outbred mice allows us to capture much of the genetic diversity we see in the human population, and design studies that are more translationally relevant to the humans compared to inbred mouse strain studies. With this population, we will identify mechanisms of cognitive resilience in the face of aging at the behavioral, synaptic, transcriptomic and DNA levels.