Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program at UC Davis

Research in the John Albeck lab focuses on understanding the mechanisms of information flow in signal transduction networks controlling cell growth, survival, and metabolism. Albeck, a UC Davis Chancellor's Fellow in the 2021-2022 cohort, combines computational models with live cell data to identify temporal signaling programs that drive cell behaviors. This knowledge can be used to improve the results of therapeutic interventions in cancer and other diseases by predicting the cellular responses to signaling inhibitors.

Charles Bevins is interested in host defenses against microbial pathogens, with a focus on the body’s antimicrobial peptides called defensins. The long-range goal of Bevins’ research is to understand the specific role that defensins play in mucosal innate immunity and to characterize the pathophysiology that characterizes impaired expression of these peptides, such as inflammatory bowel disease.

Julie Bossuyt‘s research interests include the cellular and molecular mechanisms of cardiac plasticity and disease. Her lab applies cutting-edge high resolution fluorescence imaging techniques and novel biosensors to obtain unique insight into the spatiotemporal dynamics of signaling in cardiac cells.

Research in Sean Burgess’ lab focuses on a process fundamental to reproduction: understanding principles underlying chromosome organization in the nucleus. She uses yeast and zebrafish as model organisms to explore this with both meiotic and mitotic cells, and molecular, cellular, live-cell imaging, and mathematical approaches.

Luis Carvajal Carmona examines cancer genetics and Latino genetic demography using genome-wide association studies, linkage analysis and next generation sequencing. He has been involved in the discovery of over 25 cancer genes using these methods.

Frédéric Chédin focuses on epigenetics and its influence on mammalian genomics. In particular, his lab characterizes the distribution, function, and metabolism of R-loop structures. He works to elucidate how dysfunctions in R-loop metabolism are linked to human diseases, in particular neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders as well as cancers.

Joanna Chiu, 2019 Chancellor's Fellow, studies the animal circadian clock and its control over organismal physiology using biochemical, molecular genetics, and proteomic approaches. Defects in circadian rhythms and clock genes have also been implicated in a wide range of human disorders, including chronic sleep disorders, depression, metabolic syndromes, and susceptibility to cancer and drug and alcohol addiction.

Research in Lark Coffey's lab focuses on several central themes with a common goal of reducing the burden of disease caused by arthropod-borne (arbo) viruses. These include: understanding viral genetic factors that promote arbovirus outbreaks, predicting viral mutations that enhance arbovirus transmissibility by mosquitoes and disease in humans or animals, increasing safety of candidate live-attenuated vaccines, and uncovering determinants of mosquito-virus interactions as a means to reduce virus transmission by mosquitoes.

Sean Collins uses human neutrophils to examine how individual cells process information, make decisions, and enact appropriate responses. To chase a pathogen or migrate to a site of infection, a neutrophil reorganizes its cytoskeleton and moves, even if the input signal is weak. Scientists know very little about how cells accomplish these fundamental processes, and the Collins lab uses imaging and modeling to gain new insights into these phenomena.

Lillian Cruz-Orengo focuses on sexual dimorphisms in the central nervous system and their role in autoimmunity. She uses the rodent model for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) to elucidate the contribution of the blood-brain barrier to MS sexual-bias.