Alex Lovejoy Email and Phone Number

As Oncology Applications Lead, I managed a group of assay development scientists to create future NGS assays for oncology diagnostics. Our main project areas included: (1) the development of innovative molecular biology methods to improve existing NGS assays for the detection of circulating nucleic acids, (2) the development of new content to cover additional cancer types and kinds of mutations, and (3) research studies on the utility of ctDNA NGS assays in samples from oncology clinical trials and academic collaborations.

PIs: Max Diehn, MD, PhD and Ash Alizadeh, MD, PhDAs a postdoctoral fellow, I worked on CAPP-Seq, a high throughput sequencing-based assay for detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in plasma. My work focused largely on technical advances--optimizing the assay to maximize sensitivity of ctDNA detection from clinically relevant sample sizes (typically 2-5 mL of plasma). This work was published here: http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v34/n5/full/nbt.3520.htmlIn addition, I worked with patient samples to show clinical use of ctDNA quantification in tracking tumor burden and prediction of recurrence across multiple tumor types. Some of this work was presented in a talk at ASTRO 2015: "Analysis of Circulating Tumor DNA in Esophageal Carcinoma Patients Treated With Chemoradiation Therapy" (http://online.myiwf.com/astro2015/Sessions.aspx?SID=10674), and some was presented in the paper "Early Detection of Molecular Residual Disease in Localized Lung Cancer by Circulating Tumor DNA Profiling": http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/7/12/1394.long

PI: John Boothroyd, PhDPrevious screens identified a defect in asexual differentiation in Toxoplasma gondii due to mutations in a pseudouridine synthase gene. Using techniques I previously developed, we queried the role of pseudouridylation in Toxoplasma development during this fixed-term postdoc.

PI: Patrick Brown, MD PhDAs a graduate student in Pat Brown's lab, the overall goal of my work was to identify and characterize modification of mRNAs in yeast. In doing this, I developed a high-throughput sequencing technique which can identify with single-nucleotide precision specific modifications of mRNA. Followup experiments focused on finding the enzymes and motifs necessary for such modifications, and determining the functional consequence of the modifications.I presented my work at local and national conferences, including an invited talk at the Gordon Research Conference on Editing and Modification of RNA and DNA in 2011.TA: BIO189 Biochemistry IIIn winter 2012, I was a TA for Dr. Alex Dunn's Biochemistry II class. Responsibilities included leading a weekly review/help session and grading homework and exams.

As a technician at Millipore, I worked on developing and optimizing products related to immunodetection.

PI: Joan Steitz, PhDAs an undergraduate researcher in Joan Steitz's lab, I worked on a biochemical research project related to RNA 3'-end processing. Working closely with the graduate student Kyle Friend, I performed an independent research project and contributed to a publication in Molecular Cell titled “U2 snRNP Binds Intronless Histone pre-mRNAs to Facilitate U7-snRNP-Dependent 3’ End Formation.”