Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1421085 in the fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) ) gene has one of the strongest associations with obesity in the entire human genome and is associated with iroquois homeobox protein 3 (IRX3) expression. My thesis work focuses on investigating brain circuits potentially mediating the association between FTO SNPs, IRX3, and obesity to provide critical knowledge concerning genetic disposition to obesity and aid in the development of therapeutics to reduce or reverse the obesogenic impact of the FTO SNPs. To achieve this I have:- Mastered manual as well as robot-assisted stereotaxic surgery.- Developed a deep working knowledge of AAV systems for neuroscientific applications and created numerous viral vectors.- Generated and analyzed single cell RNA sequencing datasets, gaining proficiency in many Rstudio programs including Seurat, Cellchat, and RNAvelocity.- Managed husbandry and genotyped two separate colonies of mice.- Gained a fundamental understanding of numerous instruments and techniques such as NMR, promethion metabolic chambers, light sheet microscope, Ouroboros, qPCR, FED3, glucose and insulin tolerance testing, retroorbital AAV delivery, DISCO tissue clearing, and RNAscope.

- Designed a method that interfaced Solid Phase Micro Extraction (SPME) Fibers with an APCI source on a TOF mass spectrometer to rapidly identify the presence of illicit substances in liquid samples.- This work was presented at the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy in the spring of 2019.

- Examined ATP binding site of the protein Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) because mutations in this site lead to insufficient ATP binding that ultimately results in cystic fibrosis.- I independently grew, purified, and tested the binding affinity of mutant variants of CFTR’s first binding domain, NBD1, containing non-natural fluorinated tryptophan 401.- Gained a fundamental understanding and working knowledge of instruments like the FPLC, fluorimeter, and dynamic light scatterer.