Alina Chan Email & Phone Number

Investigating the effects of human genetic variation on the efficacy of adeno-associated virus (AAV) variants in order to engineer gene therapy viral vectors targeting diverse patient populations. This work aims to leverage unique resources at the Broad Institute to advance existing strategies in biomedical research and shift toward more equitable gene therapy and cell engineering.Secured an industry postdoctoral fellowship and consulting contract; contributed to obtaining 2 grants; Shark Tank Broad Institute competition winning team member. Co-authored three peer-reviewed articles, one open letter in Science Magazine, and one book chapter.

Pamela Silver Lab

Won two fellowships: the Human Frontier Science Program Postdoctoral Fellowship ($160K; ~75 awardees worldwide annually) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship ($80K, ~180 awardees annually).As the lead trainee across 2 grants, managed a multi-site (6 research groups across 3 institutes) and interdisciplinary collaboration, led a team to meet biweekly milestones, authored reports and proposals, developed experimental pipelines and protocols, and presented findings at local and international meetings (4 plenary presentations, 3 interviews). Co-authored 3 peer-reviewed publications.Co-wrote grants to secure more than $6M in funding from DARPA, IARPA, and Synberc for the purposes of developing gene editing technologies and human artificial chromosomes, and innovating platforms to functionally and computationally assess novel viral genes and proteins.Prototyped a de novo human artificial chromosome for human cell engineering.Developed a yeast-to-human cell fusion technique to deliver genetic assemblies up to one megabase in size, which enables the rapid building and testing of virus genomes for functional screens.

Philip Hieter Lab

Co-authored 5 peer-reviewed publications (3 first author publications).Was the first to profile the entire Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast genome for DNA-RNA hybrids by chromatin immunoprecipitation and microarray, and to establish novel connections between non-coding RNA, cellular functions, and genome instability; this work (cited 100 times in <5 years) fostered a lasting collaboration between 3 labs at the University of British Columbia to study the cancer relevance of DNA-RNA hybrids across model organisms and in human cells.GPA of 4.0/4.0; won 9 awards totalling >$200K, including the DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics (2014), Roman M. Babicki Fellowship in Medical Research (2013), Federation of European Microbiological Societies Meeting Grant (2013), Harry and Florence Dennison Fellowship in Medical Research (2012), William and Dorothy Gilbert Graduate Scholarship in Biomedical Sciences (2011), and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada Doctoral Scholarship (2010–2013).

Paul Matsudaira Lab

Preliminary study of canal water ecogenetics and microbe visualization

Brett Finlay Lab

Study of Salmonella effectors and host interaction partners required for pathogenesis

Yossef Av-Gay Lab

Study of Mycobacterium protein effectors and interactions

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Biochemistry And Molecular Biology

Activities and Societies: Graduate Student Council Member, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Medicine Research Council, 2013-2014.

Bachelor Of Science (B.Sc.), Biochemistry And Molecular Biology

Activities and Societies: Honors Thesis, Brett Finlay Lab, Microbiology and Immunology, 2008-2009 | SCI Team, 2007-2009 | UBC.