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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Dr. Phil Abitua is an assistant professor in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. The Abitua lab works on annual killifish, an emerging model to study aging due to its remarkable adaptation to an ephemeral environment, which compressed its lifespan to approximately 4-6 months. We are interested in how environmental pressures […]
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Dr. Armstrong is a postdoc in Maitreya Dunham’s lab in the department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. His research focuses on using baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and modified continuous culture systems known as aging chemostats to evolve yeast cells to extend replicative lifespan. In the wild, there is little evolutionary pressure to […]
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Innovation in protein design to target aging and age-related disease Dr. Baker has pioneered methods to predict and design the three-dimensional structures of proteins. He is the Henrietta and Aubrey Davis Endowed Professor in Biochemistry and an adjunct professor of Genome Sciences, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, and Physics. He serves as the Director of […]
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Former BMHA Trainee, Former BMHA Trainee
Dr. Beichman is a postdoc in Dr. Kelley Harris’ Lab at UW Genome Sciences. Her research uses genomics to learn about mutation and demographic history in wild mammals that have experienced extreme demographic events or remarkable evolutionary transitions, including sea otters, bears, and whales. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles […]
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
The Berg lab studies the effect of mutations that disrupt cell fate and cell migration during development. Using Drosophila as a model system, they explore how gene dysregulation impacts organ structure and function, leading to reduced viability and fertility. The underlying cell and molecular mechanisms involved in these processes also contribute to human disorders, for […]
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty, Invertebrate Core Director, NSC Core Director, Shock Center Executive Committee
Aneuploidy, evolution, and aging. Dr. Dunham develops and applies genomic tools to study genome evolution and genetic variation in yeast and humans. She has a special interest in how gene and chromosome copy number variation contributes to adaptation, the mechanisms by which such variation arises, and the relationship between aneuploidy and aging. They utilize the budding […]
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Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Genome Sciences
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Dr. Harris uses population genetic theory and high-throughput biological sequence analysis to study recent evolutionary history in humans and other species. One are of particular interest is the evolution of mutagenesis the forces that control DNA replication fidelity, the mutational breakdown of established traits, and the ultimate origin of new traits. Although DNA is replicated and […]
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Dr. Kathryn A. Jewett, Ph.D. received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Neuroscience from Washington State University. Her graduate work with Dr. James M. Krueger involved looking at the effects of electrical and chemical stimulation on cultured neural networks, correlating features between whole animal brain sleep/wake states and dissociated in vitro neural networks. After graduation […]
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Aging factors in complex heritable conditions. Dr. King’s group uses next generation sequencing approaches to identify genes responsible for complex human conditions. Since the 1970s, her group has exploited approaches from genetics, then molecular biology, then genomics to discover and characterize genes for inherited disease. There are four areas of her work that offer insights […]
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Computer Science, Genome Sciences
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AI Core Director, BMHA Executive Committee, BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty, Shock Center Executive Committee
Understanding aging through explainable machine learning The Lee lab seeks to develop explainable AI for life sciences. Explainable in this context means understanding which features drive the prediction. The Lee lab has been collaborating with the Kaeberlein lab to develop and apply machine learning to aging biology, with the initial goal of using noisy human […]
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty, Metabolomics Core Director, NSC Core Director, Proteomics Core Director, Shock Center Executive Committee
Applications of mass spectrometry in the biology of aging The focus of Dr. MacCoss’ laboratory is in the development and application of cutting edge mass spectrometry based technologies for the analysis of complex protein mixtures. His primary area of expertise is in protein biochemistry, nanoflow liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry instrumentation, and computational analysis of mass […]
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Mitochondrial quality control in aging. Much of Dr. Pallanck’s current work stems from his studies of Drosophila homologs of the Parkinson’s disease-related genes parkin and PINK1. His work on Parkin and PINK1 led to his hypothesis that these factors promote the degradation of damaged mitochondria through mitophagy, a mitochondrial-selective form of autophagy. Work in many […]
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Dr. Pomaville is a postdoc in Dr. Philip Abitua’s lab in the Department of Genome Sciences at UW. His research uses the extraordinarily short-lived African killifish to examine the mechanisms regulating the balance of apoptosis and senescence in aging animals. Matt is interested in using cell biology approaches and unique model organisms to explore multiple […]
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Gene regulation and heritable phenotypic variation in aging The Queitsch lab focuses on two related fields: the genetic architecture of complex traits and the role of gene regulation and protein folding in generating heritable phenotypic variation – including phenotypes of aging. We advance complex trait genetics by ascertaining uncharacterized sequence variation and by resolving the […]
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Biochemistry, Biology, Genome Sciences
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Adult stem cell aging Dr. Ruohola-Baker’s laboratory studies the molecules and cellular properties that are required for stem cell states and their differentiation capacity. During the recent years the laboratory has shown that microRNAs and the HIF pathway play key roles in regulating adult and embryonic stem cell self-renewal in model organisms as well as […]
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Dr. Schweppe’s research interests focus on the implementation of millisecond informatics to enable intelligent data acquisition strategies. His research group applies these technologies to quantify proteins as a readout for diverse cell states with broad interests spanning microbial protein interactions, small-molecule binding events, pre-clinical proteomics, and profiling primary tissue samples. Dr. Schweppe’s research group builds […]
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Dr. Tsantilas is a postdoctoral fellow in Michael MacCoss’ laboratory in the Genome Sciences Department. She completed her PhD in the laboratory of James B. Hurley in the UW Biochemistry Department, where she studied metabolic activity in young, healthy retinas and examined how aging affects these norms. Her research as a postdoctoral fellow uses different […]
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Genome Sciences, Lab Medicine and Pathology, Medical Genetics
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BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty
Age-associated changes in synaptic non-coding RNAs Dr. Valdmanis joined the University of Washington as an Assistant Professor in 2017. His lab studies genetic risk factors for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and gene therapy methods for therapeutic intervention. Through a series of studies focusing on long-read sequencing of the genome […]
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BMHA Executive Committee, BMHA Training Faculty, HALO Faculty, Proteomics Core Director, Shock Center Executive Committee
Dr. Villen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Genome Sciences. She earned her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Barcelona. During her postdoc at Harvard Medical School she was involved in several technology developments that enabled the robust characterization of thousands of phosphorylation sites: from biochemical methods to mass spectrometry acquisition strategies […]
