Kathleen Becker Email & Phone Number

Portland, Me, Us

Biddeford, Me, Us

Biddeford, Me, Us

Part-time adjunct lecturer for Genetics in the Department of Biological Sciences and College of Medicine at the University of New England. I participated in the team-taught Osteopathic Medical Knowledge course for first year medical students where I organized the genetic curriculum, developed lecturers, set pre-week and weekly learning objectives, and wrote exam questions. The case-based curriculum required communication with multiple faculties in order to provide short-term and long-term connections within the course material.

Orono, Me, Us

Instructor/Lecturer: Organized and co-taught a graduate course on osteoporosis in the department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. • Developed the course curriculum in conjunction with the co-instructor, Dr. Clifford Rosen, that was compatible for course taught both in person and remotely • Organized the syllabus with internal and external speakers • Designed lectures on novel topics and wrote/graded exams • Guided students through a semester long project with a student-developed research question and proposed clinical study Doctoral Thesis Committee Member: Advised interdepartmental doctoral student on course curriculum and dissertation research project.

South Portland, Me, Us

Microbiology lecture and laboratory instructor in the department of Biological Sciences.

Portland, Me, Us

Immunology laboratory instructor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

Portland, Maine, Us

Osteoporosis affects over 10 million people, causing 1.5 million osteoporosis-related fractures per year. Not only does fracture-related care result in a significant drain on our healthcare system costing of over $12 billion per year, but fractures are associated with decreased quality of life and increased morbidity and mortality. Both bone formation and breakdown processes are critical for maintaining healthy bone which is important for quality of life and longevity. My research has focused on understanding the of novel factors influences bone metabolism and bone microarchitecture in the laboratory of Dr. Clifford Rosen, M.D. In particularly, I focused on the role of Dedicator of cytokinesis 7 (Dock7), a guanine nucleotide exchange factor involved in GTP-loading Rac1 and Cdc42, in modulating bone metabolism. This was the subject of a funded Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award: Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32) at NIAMS. • Generated a floxed Dock7 mouse model using the CRISPR/Cas9 system in single cell embryos in a successful collaboration with biotechnology company• Developed genotyping strategies to screen founders for identification of targeted genomic insertions by genotyping, enzymatic digestion, and sequencing• Spearheaded new laboratory breeding strategies for the development of transgenic mouse models• Utilized our novel transgenic mouse model to assess body composition and bone density, isolated tissues for gene and protein expression studies, and developed in vitro models to study Dock7 and bone• Actively managed Biosafety and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee protocols• Taught guest lectures on bone biology and mentored graduate students

Madison, Wi, Us

RANKL is expressed in multiple cell types and plays a role in many biological processes including osteoclast differentiation, mammary gland development with lactation, thymus development and immune cell function, thermal regulation, and cancer metastasis. Using the tissue-specific and tissue-nonspecific Rankl enhancers identified during my graduate work, we have designed several enhancer knockout mouse strains. Additionally, I have constructed a Rankl containing BAC clone which contained the entire regulatory locus bookended by insulator regions. The resulting BAC clone transgenic mice were used to investigate tissue specific expression of Rankl and for rescue of the Rankl-null mouse. • Generated ChIP- and RNA-sequencing data sets to identify novel regulatory regions controlling gene expression • Manipulated and modified BAC clones using recombineering for generation of BAC clone transgenic mice• Established BAC clone transgenic mouse lines for in vivo assessment of gene expression through reporter activity• Published one first author manuscript and other additional publications• Mentored 3 graduate students

Lewisburg, Pa, Us

Lipoxygenases are non-heme iron containing proteins that catalyze the dioxygenasetion of polyunsaturated fatty acids in both plants and animals. Mammilian lipoxygenases are involved in the formation of leukotrienes and other inflammatory mediators as well as cell membrane modification during cell differentiation. Substrates range from small molecules, such as linoleic acid and arachadonic acid, to large tails of phospholipids. However, the mechanism by which the small active site accommodates such a large range of substrates sizes had yet to be elucidated. I spent three years in the laboratory of Dr. Charles Clapp, Ph.D. developing a method to characterize the stereochemistry of enzymatic products produced from substrates with different physical properties. • Generated enzymatic products from soybean lipoxygenase I • Derivitized enzymatic products by adding an additional chiral centers to create diastereomers• Utilized NMR and GC/MS were used to monitor product derivatization • Published two manuscripts• Received an oral presentation at the Kalman Research Symposium• Awarded Bucknell summer internship in 2003• Completed honors thesis titled: Probing the Molecular Basis for the Substrate Specificity of Soybean Lipoxygenase-I

Rahway, New Jersey, Us

Investigated polysaccharides fro vaccine development

Ph.D., Molecular Biology/Biochemistry

The Delta Program: Research, Teaching, And Learning, Stem Education

B.S., Biochemistry/Cell Biology