Sara Debic Email & Phone Number

Department Of Embryology, 3520 San Martin Drive, Baltimore Md 21218

Successfully applied single-cell sequencing to lamin-mutant mouse embryos and identified the primary developmental defect and cell type affected.Leveraged single-cell trajectory analysis tools and nonnegative-matrix factorization methods to study the cell type of interest in the single-cell data. Optimized a low-cell high-throughput chromosome conformation capture technique for the in vivo embryonic cell type of interest to study lamin proteins’ novel effects on the 3D genome during development.

Baltimore, Md 21218

During laboratory rotations in the 1st year of the PhD, produced various mutants of an oxidative-stress regulating small RNA in Archaea to verify its binding to a target RNA. Designed and executed experiments to investigate whether the Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) RNA contains a detained intron, which could help regulate the expression of this RNA whose heightened expression is implicated in cancer.

Mountain View, California, United States

In a paid summer internship, analyzed lipid biomarkers present in Mars-analogue environments, including the Atacama Desert and Icelandic gully systems, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.Reviewed the literature concerning abiotic and biotic lipids to formulate chemical parameters to distinguish between them during extraterrestrial biomarker discovery.

San Francisco, California, United States

Applied molecular phylogenetic methods and bioinformatics to elucidate the sister taxon to sea pen octocorals. Successfully conducted scanning electron microscopy to image octocoral sclerites to aid in species identification.

Zagreb, Croatia

Investigated whether the protein Sirtuin 3 acts as an oncogene or tumor suppressor in MCF7 breast cancer cells under hyperoxic conditions by analyzing protein and gene expression signatures.

San Francisco, California, United States

Created and cloned three isoforms of the alpha-synuclein gene for use in downstream experiments investigating drug effects on Alzheimer’s disease.Applied biochemical methods including sucrose gradients and drug-resin affinity chromatography to investigate in vitro Ebola virus capsid assembly, and how it is affected by certain drugs.Presented data weekly to peers and mentors, and had a wrap-up presentation summarizing key results at the end of the internship.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Cell, Molecular, Developmental Biology And Biophysics

Currently pursuing a PhD in the lab of Dr. Yixian Zheng at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Embryology.

Bachelor'S Degree, Molecular Biology