I conduct computational protein engineering research, combining AI-driven protein design and molecular dynamics simulations to develop novel molecular recognition tools and optimized CRISPR-Cas12a systems.
Hi! I am a chemical engineering and computer science graduate, and current research technician in a molecular diagnostics lab at Tulane University School of Medicine. There I lead two computational protein design projects and assist with data analysis for others.
My goal is to leverage the advantages of both computational and experimental techniques to answer my research questions.
Using reinforcement learning to fine-tune a protein language model on the Cas12a family to generate novel nucleases with improved thermostability, specificity, and activity to optimize one-pot CRISPR detection assays.
ProGen2 · AMBER · sequence level filtering · OpenRLHF
Expanding the scope of known computational binder design pipelines to small tryptic and disulfide-rich peptides with improved specificity for detection and neutralization purposes.
RFdiffusion · AlphaFold2 Sequence Hallucination · ProteinMPNN · Rosetta ddG
Bulk RNA-seq analysis supporting the lab's infection biology work, including alignment, quality control, and differential expression pipeline.
STAR · FastQC/MultiQC · featureCounts · DESeq2
Identified key downregulated pathways implicated in ZFTA-RELA ependymoma tumorigenesis, corroborated by their presence in in-vitro and in-vivo models.
bulk RNA-seq analysis · ChIP-seq analysis · R
Built and trained a U-Net convolutional neural network to automate unbiased MRI tumor segmentation for fast tumor volume quantification.
PyTorch · CNN · Slicer · Python
Constructed growth curves for multiple patient-derived xenograft ependymoma models to measure the effects of IGF2 treatment.
Cell culture · Western blot · ELISA · PCR · RNA extraction