Lauren P
- Research Program Mentor

PhD candidate at Stanford University

Expertise

Cell and Molecular Biology

Bio

My name is Lauren Pope, I use she/her pronouns, and I am excited to work with you as your mentor! I am passionate about learning and teaching/mentoring others to share knowledge. I find biology fascinating, figuring out how small molecules coordinate to form cells, tissues, and organisms is something that intrigues me. I hope I can show my mentees how fun science can be. Personally, I am interested in teaching an interesting sport called colorguard to high school students. In my free time I teach my students how to dance and spin flags for performances with their marching band. Other than that, I like to swim and watch shows.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Essentiality of Genes in Pancreatic Cancer

Certain genes are essential for all cancer cells to survive. However, some genes are only essential in certain cell type contexts. To figure out how to kill cancer cells of certain cell types, we can use publicly available data on the Broad Institute's Cancer Cell Line Dependency Map database. This database shows us which genes are essential across thousands of cancer cell lines. If we look at pancreatic cancer specifically, we can identify genes that are important for driving cell survival only in the pancreatic cancer context, which may be exploitable for cancer chemotherapies.

Teaching experience

I started tutoring peers in high school and proceeded to tutor elementary school kids in english and math throughout my time in college. I then took on a role as a teaching assistant during college for a biology lab course. To further build my teaching skills I also served as a teaching assistant for an honors interdisciplinary course in college. Once starting graduate school at Stanford I continued teaching through my role as a teaching assistant for two biology core courses, including human and plant physiology. I also mentor both a high school and undergraduate student daily in the lab, teaching them relevant skills for the scientific research we conduct.

Credentials

Work experience

Corteva (2018 - 2018)

Intern

Education

James Madison University

BS Bachelor of Science (2017)

Biology

Stanford University

PhD Doctor of Philosophy candidate