Postbaccalaureate

2010-2011: PREP scholar

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Advisor: Dr. Xinyu Zhao

After graduating from Oberlin, I wanted more bench lab experience, and was lucky to be accepted into a PREP post baccalaureate program at the University of New Mexico for a year-long internship. I worked on a project studying the various molecular components that determine the fate new born neurons in the adult. The adult brain is capable of generating new neurons in two places: the olfactory bulb (responsible for smell) and the hippocampus (learning and memory). The ability to integrate new hippocampal neurons well into adulthood (termed ‘hippocampal neurogenesis’) has been linked to the ability to store new information, but the details of how to harness this neurogenesis power, and the molecular details underlying the process, remain unclear. I worked on a project that demonstrated a negative feedback loop between a microRNA and a protein could help tip the balance towards new neurons or not.

Skills acquired include biochemistry, non-biased stereology, immunostaining, and molecular biology.

Publications:

Liu C, Teng Z-Q, McQuate AL, Jobe EM, Christ CC, et al. (2013) An epigenetic feedback regulatory loop Involving microRNA-195 and MBD1 governs neural stem cell differentiation. PLoS ONE 8(1): e51436. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051436

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0051436

EM Jobe, A McQuate and X Zhao (2012). Crosstalk among epigenetic pathways regulates neurogenesis. Frontiers in Neuroscience Volume 6, Article 59.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2012.00059/full