In the MORL, I am a member of the Clinical Genetic Team. During my undergrad and grad school, I was very interested in the evolution of fish and their genomes, particularly large-scale changes to the genome, such as deletions, duplications, etc. That being said, I am excited to say that I am one of the individuals in the lab that performs Multiplex Ligation-Dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA), which detects genetic deletions, duplications, and rearrangements.

As a member of the Hearing Team, I assess genetic variants, write OtoSCOPE result letters, and assist the genetic counselor in the hearing loss clinic. I joined in 2023 after graduating from UT Austin with my BS in genetics/genomics. For fun, I like to play video games with my partner and play with our cats, Winona and Lurch.

I am an assistant research scientist who, alongside my MORL colleagues, is attempting to identify and characterize complement-activating autoantibodies called “nephritic factors.”  These nephritic factors are the main causal agents driving a group of ultra-rare kidney diseases collectively termed C3 Glomerulopathy.  To identify these elusive factors, we utilize diverse biochemical and cellular approaches that include single cell immune profiling and RNA-sequencing, bioinformatics, flow cytometry, proteomics, and a wide variety of wet bench biochemical assays. 

I am a research intern transitioning to graduate school. In the lab, I use a minigene splicing assay to identify splice altering variants in complement regulators such as CFI and CFH. With my minigene assay, I am working to understand the mechanisms of disease for pathogenic variants. Additionally, I am working to understand how missense mutation affects protein folding for various proteins within the complement cascade.

I am a research assistant on the Renal Research team of the MORL and work closely with Dr. Zhang and the Renal Functional Team. I am currently investigating the functional effects of specific genetic variants in complement factor B with hopes of learning more about if/how variants in factor B contribute to the pathogenesis of complement-mediated renal diseases.

I joined the MORL research team in the summer of 2019 and have worked primarily with surface plasmon resonance to characterize the kinetics of nephritic factors. Additionally, I am working to purify mutant complement proteins for further characterization in the lab.