Focus

My primary research interest is in neurobiology. I am also very interested in the use of computers to extract useful information from biological data.

Technique of Interest: Gene Expression Microarray Analysis

I am studying the use of gene expression microarrays to learn information about the mRNA expression levels of genes in the brain. I am also working on processing the large volume of data the genome-wide microarray experiment through computer and statistical analysis.

My presentation on the preliminary stages of analyzing gene expression data can be found here. A second part focusing on interpreting the data that would be produced from the first stages can be found here.

Gene of Interest: Mecp2

I am focused on studying the gene Mecp2 (methyl CpG binding protein 2) which is involved in both sexually dimorphic and epigenetic activity in the brain. This gene's sexual dimorphic activity largely comes about as a result of it's location on the X chromosome. Additionally it has been shown to be involved in sexually dimorphic juvenile play behavior in mice. The gene's epigenetic activity comes from it's binding to methylated DNA and recruiting histone deacetylases to silence regions of DNA.