Hooray for our amazing undergrad researchers

Dennis lab undergrads Louie, Aidan, and Emily showcased their research through excellent poster presentations at the annual UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference. We are so proud of all you have accomplished!

Welcome to PhD grad student, Zoeb

Welcome to Integrative Genetics & Genomics PhD student Zoeb Jamal, who has joined the Dennis lab to pursue questions related to genetic variation in human duplicated genes and their role in neurodevelopment. Zoeb recently graduated with his B.S. in Computational and Systems Biology from UCLA and took a year to pursue postbac research in Dr. Päivi Pajukanta lab.

Dennis lab takes on ASHG in DC

Hello DC, how we have missed you!

The Dennis lab had a blast at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting in Washington where we hung out with old friends and made new ones. Former grad student Daniela Soto joined Megan and former grad student (now postdoc) José Uribe-Salazar to present research related to structural variation and human evolution. The week was rounded off with José presenting a plenary talk on his shared work with Daniela identifying and characterizing human duplicated genes implicated in brain evolution, earning them an ASHG postdoctoral award. In addition to this award, numerous UC Davis trainees presented amazing work this year. So proud!

UC Davis Genome Center Halloween symposium 2023

Our annual Genome Center Halloween symposium showcased human genetics research, with keynote speakers Priya Moorjani from UC Berkeley and Lucia Hindorff from NHGRI. There were awesome pumpkins and costumes all around, with the Dennis lab representing with its zebrafish pumpkin (courtesy of grad student Nick) and our Hogwarts-themed group costume.

Genomic structural variation: A complex but important driver of human evolution

Check out our recently published review in Yearbook American Journal of Biological Anthropology, led by multiple former and current PhD students Daniela Soto, José Uribe-Salazar, Colin Shew, Sean McGinty, and Aarthi Sekar. We share challenges in detecting structural variation and the roles they play in human evolution. In particular, we highlight top candidate human duplicated genes implicated in brain development, detailed below.

Image created in Biorender.

Congrats to Dr. Colin Shew & Dr. Daniela Soto: Our first Dennis lab PhD Grads!

Halloween Genome Center symposium

The lab took part in the UC Davis Genome Center Halloween Symposium (first time in-person since 2019). Our Bob-Ross-themed costumes secured our place as team and individual costume winners this year (was stiff competition, as usual!), as well as 3rd place for our Neanderthal-themed pumpkins. Was nice to see faculty, staff, and trainees in person again to discuss topics related to diversity!

Dennis lab at (in-person) ASHG!

We were excited to attend ASHG in-person in LA, to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Four lab members presented their work:

  • Postdoc Sierra Nishizaki platform talk: “Novel genes associated with the severe autism subphenotype disproportionate megalencephaly”

  • Grad student José Uribe-Salazar poster: “Parallel functional screening of human duplicated genes in neurodevelopment at single-cell resolution using zebrafish”

  • Grad student Colin Shew poster: “Dissecting mechanisms underlying expression divergence of human duplicated genes”

  • Grad student Daniela Soto poster: “Population diversity and selection of recent gene duplications detected using a complete human genome sequence”

Good news: Graduations and grad school!

Three junior trainees from the lab are heading to grad school starting in Fall 2022:

  • Genetics and genomics undergrad Cole Ingamells will be starting the M.S. Bioinformatics program at UC Berkeley.

  • UC Davis PREP scholar Tasha Mariano is starting in the Ph.D. Molecular Biology and Genetics program at Cornell University.

  • Former undergrad Aditya Sriram completed his M.S. in Epidemiology from the University of Washington and will be starting in the Ph.D. Human Genetics program at University of Pittsburgh.

We also have farewells and graduations to celebrate:

  • IGG student Aedric Lim completed his M.S. on “3D Genome Organization in the Developing Macaque Brain” with future plans to pursue a career in genetic counseling. He is currently seeking out clinical research opportunities. Feel free to reach out to Aedric.

  • Postdoc Sierra Nishizaki completed their ARTP fellowship focused on the genetics of ASD with megalencephaly (with a preprint on the way, stay tuned!) and is currently on the job market as a Bioinformatician (see tweet for more info and feel free to reach out to Sierra).

  • Former undergrad and postbac KaeChandra Weyenberg completed her M.S. in Public Health from East Tennessee University and is now lead supervisor epidemiologist at the Tennessee Department of Health.

  • Former undergrad Dhriti Jagannathan completed her M.S. in Genetic Counseling at the University of Minnesota and is now Program Manager and General/Pediatrics Genetic Counselor at Columbia University working with the All Of Us study and eMERGE network.