UCLA

Undergraduate Work: Quinlan Lab

During my tenure in the Quinlan Lab at UCLA, I studied the protein-protein interaction between Drosophila Spire and Drosophila Rab GTPases within the context of polarity establishment during Drosophila oogenesis. This work culminated in a Master’s Thesis as a part of the Departmental Scholars Program.

Wang, L. (2017). Interaction Between Spire and Rab GTPases and its Effect on the Developing Drosophila Oocyte. UCLA link.

Research Associate: Kosuri Lab

During my two years of postbac research training, I worked as a research associate/lab manager in the Kosuri Lab at UCLA. The transition took me from actin protein biochemistry to the implementation of NGS-based high throughout DNA-barcode based reporter assays to interrogate several biological questions specifically, GPCR-ligand response, deep mutational scan of the Beta-2-Adrenergic Receptor and splicing effects of rare human genetic variants.

Jones, E.M., Jajoo, R., Cancilla, D., Lubock, N.B., Wang, J., Satyadi, M., Cheung, R., March, C., Bloom, J.S., Matsunami, H., Kosuri, S. (2019). A Scalable Multiplexed Assay for Decoding GPCR-Ligand Interactions with RNA Sequencing. Cell Systems, 8(3), 254-260. PMCID: PMC6907015 link.

Jones, E.M., Lubock, N.B., Venkatakrishnan, A.J., Wang, J., Tseng, A.M., Paggi, J.M., Latorraca, N.R., Cancilla, D., Satyadi, M., Davis., J.E., Babu, M.M., Dror, R.O., Kosuri, S. (2020). Structural and functional characterization of G protein-coupled receptors with deep mutational scanning. eLife. PMCID: PMC7707821 link.

Cheung, R., Insigne, K.D., Yao, D., Burghard, C.P., Wang, J., Hsiao, Y.E, Jones, E.M, Goodman, D.B., Xiao, X., Kosuri, S. (2019). A Multiplexed Assay for Exon Recognition Reveals That an Unappreciated Fraction of Rare Genetic Variants Cause Large-Effect Splicing Disruptions. Molecular Cell, 73(1), 183-194. PMCID: PMC6599603 link.

UT Health San Antonio

Summer Rotation 2019: Huang Lab

I rotated in the Huang Lab during summer 2019 and worked on quantifying the metabolic changes in oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis of circulating prostate cancer cells when treated with metformin. Emerging evidence suggested that metformin has some antitumor properties in modulating cancer cell metabolism. Thus, I investigated any changes in energy metabolism of cancer cells during circulation and metformin treatment. I presented these findings at the annual STX-MSTP Spring Retreat as well as the Long School of Medicine Research Week. You can view the poster here.

Graduate Student: Sung Lab

Currently, I am conducting my Ph.D dissertation work in the Sung Lab. I am focused on biochemically characterizing the functional role of two protein complexes, MCM8-9, a heterodimeric helicase and PolA-Primase, a primase-polymerase duo, in homologous recombination (HR) mediated DNA repair. I presented my preliminary findings at the annual STX-MSTP Spring Retreat in April of 2022. You can view the poster here.