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RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

 

Florida International University (May 2015 - Present)

Department of Biological Sciences, Miami, FL, USA

Research Assistant to Dr. Manuel A. Barbieri, Associate Professor

  • Performing cell culture, mRNA extraction, cDNA synthesis

  • Examining the expression of HLA proteins in Thp1 cells after treatments

  • Examining the gene expression levels after cells being infected with bacterial strains, using RT-PCR and qPCR  

  • Statistical analysis of gene expression data

 

 

Florida International University (Jan 2014 – Present)

PI: Dr. Mehmet T. Dorak

  • Performed functional annotation of around ~238,000 SNPs located in HLA region

  • Performed bioinformatics tools such as ANNOVAR, SNPnexus, CADD etc*.

  • Performing qPCR and gene expression analysis

*SEE MY BIOINFORMATICS PAGE FOR DETAILS

 

 

Florida International University (Aug 2010 – May 2015)

Ph.D. Title: A case-only genome-wide association study of gender- and age-specific risk markers for childhood leukemia

Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, Miami, Florida, USA

Advisers: Dr. Mehmet T. Dorak & Dr. Stanislaw F. Wnuk

  • Performed a novel approach (case-only) to identify gender- and age-specific single nucleotide polymorphisms

  • Analyzed effect modification/statistical interaction by gender and age using PLINK and R software

  • Performed t-test, chi-squared, logistic regression, Kaplan-Meier, log rank and cox-proportional hazard ratio

  • Performed bioinformatic analyses on identified single nucleotide polymorphisms using online available tools for functional annotation, expression quantitative trait loci analysis, pathway analysis, gene-gene and gene-environment interaction analyses

 

Florida International University (Aug 2010 – Dec 2013)

Graduate Research Assistant under Dr. Mehmet T. Dorak, Associate Professor

  • Performed several molecular genetics experiments using PCR, such as TaqMan allelic discrimination assays, restricted fragment length polymorphism to identify single nucleotide variants

  • Established a DNA methylation protocol using high resolution melting

  • Examined childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) case-control samples to identify SNPs association with risk, sex differences, gene-gene interactions, racial and ethnic differences

  • Examined X chromosomes to identify sex differences in childhood ALL risk

  • Examined lung cancer and breast cancer samples to identify HLA region genetic risk variants

  • Performed cell culture, mRNA extraction, cDNA synthesis and gene expression experiments using RT-PCR and qPCR

  • Analyzed data using STATA, SPSS, SAS and R

  • Mentored several undergraduate, graduate and PhD students to teach molecular genetics techniques, research design used for genetic association studies and statistical analysis of molecular genetic data

 

 

University of Allahabad (Feb 2005 - May 2005)

Supervisor: Dr. Shanthy Sundaram, Head of the Department

Center for Biotechnology, Nehru Science Center, Allahabad, UP, India

M.Sc. thesis: Medicinal importance of Argemone mexicana with respect to its antibacterial properties

  • Broth dilution method and agar cup diffusion method using several bacterial strains

  • Used ANOVA to do statistical analysis

 

 

Central Drug Research Institute (June 2004 - Aug 2004)

Division of Parasitology, Lucknow, India

Supervisor: Dr. Renu Tripathi, PhD

Summer training: Relation of circulatory cytokines and development of cerebral malaria

  • Maintenance of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro and Plasmodium yoelii in vivo

  • Different immunological techniques such as ELISA

  • TNF-α and IFN-γ estimation in healthy and infected mice serum

  • Protein estimation by Folins Lowry method

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