Variant Effects Seminar Series Organizing Committee

Priyanka is a postdoctoral fellow, co-mentored by Prof. James Fraser and Dr. Willow Coyote-Maestas at UCSF. She is interested in integrating deep sequencing with machine learning techniques to determine the structural basis of fusion protein-driven oncogenesis. She did her Ph.D. at Indian Institute of Science under the supervision of Prof. Raghavan Vardarajan. She developed high-throughput screens using deep mutational scanning to study the effects of mutations on protein activity, stability, and co-translational folding.

Ohanna is a CANSSI STAGE postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She applies statistical methods in DNA methylation and whole genome sequencing data to understand the epidemiological, genetic, and epigenetic determinants of complex diseases. A molecular biologist by training, Ohanna received a master’s and PhD degree in Genetic Epidemiology from the Oswaldo Cruz Institution in Brazil, where she studied genetic susceptibility of infectious diseases in admixed population. For her bachelor’s degree,...moreOhanna received a master's and PhD degree in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ/Brazil). Her dissertation focused on the Genetic Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases. Currently, she is a Postdoc of the CANSSI Ontario STAGE HostSeq Project in Dalla Lana School of Public Health at University of Toronto, studying genetics and epigenetics of complex traits.

Matteo is a Novo Nordisk Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford / University of Copenhagen, where he is supervised by Prof. Charlotte Deane and Prof. Philip Biggin. Matteo's current research interests are in immunoinformatics, computational structural biology and variant effect prediction. During his Ph.D. in Biology, supervised by Prof. Kresten Lindorff-Larsen at the University of Copenhagen, Matteo worked on understanding the mechanisms behind loss-of-function and built predictors to classify variants based on their effects on proteins.

Ziyi is a PhD student in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Dr. Gregory Costain. Her doctoral research focuses on leveraging large-scale genome sequencing data to investigate variant effects and their transmission within human populations. In addition to her primary research, Ziyi actively participates in workgroups dedicated to newborn sequencing and engages in scientific outreach initiatives.

Mariano is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in the “Protein phase transitions in health and disease” lab, under the supervision of Drs. Benedetta Bolognesi and Ben Lehner. Mariano aims to understand how amino acids changes affects amyloid aggregation using massively parallel reporter assays. He received his Ph.D. from National University of Cordoba, Argentina, where he studied how variants in sodium iodide symporter (NIS) may cause congenital hypothyroidism, supervised by Dr. Juan Pablo Nicola. As...morepart of his Ph.D. training, Mariano did a short-term fellowship in Yale University under the supervision of Dr. Nancy Carrasco.

Jingyou is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she conducts research under the guidance of Dr. Harold Pimentel. Her work focuses on developing rigorous statistical inference frameworks tailored to diverse types of deep mutational scanning data. Additionally, she is informally co-mentored by Dr. Willow Coyote-Maestas at the University of California, San Francisco, where she enjoys bridging computational analysis with experimental biochemistry and biophysics.

Adelaide is an NHGRI MOSAIC K99/R00 postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan where she works with Drs. Stephen Parker and Jacob Kitzman. She completed her PhD training in statistical genetics and genomics to study gene-environment interactions. Currently, she leads a multi-institution effort to characterize all noncoding variants associated with type 2 diabetes across cell types and stimulation states using massively parallel reporter assays. ​​With the support of her K99/R00 award, she is building a research program to study broad...moreaspects of complex disease including network circuitry disrupted along the continuum of monogenic and polygenic human diseases.