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.

Megan Dennis studies disease genetics, human genomics and evolution. Her main interests lie in identifying previously unexplored genes and variants that contribute to human-specific neurological traits and diseases, developing next-generation sequencing methods to assay regions of the genome that are difficult to study with traditional techniques, and identifying gene variants associated with neurological disorders.

The Elva Diaz laboratory studies molecular and cellular mechanisms of brain development, function and disease in rodent model systems. They focus on two main areas: neural proliferation and synapse development using a combination of molecular, cellular, biochemical, and genomic approaches.

Bruce Draper studies the mechanisms that regulate adult stem cell behavior in zebrafish as a model organism. Stem cells, which self-renew as well as give rise to differentiated progeny, seem to play a central role in the biology of cancers, including acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), breast, and brain cancers.