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Karla T
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill)
Expertise
Genetics and Molecular Biology, Biology.
Bio
My name is Karla Troncoso and I am a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am part of a lab that uses the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to study epigenetics and chromatin structure. My dissertation project is centered around DNA replication and genome integrity. I am interested in a specific post translational modification that seems to be involved in effective DNA replication. I do a lot of confocal microscopy and have lots of cool images I would love to share with you! A little more about myself, I was born and raised in Quito, Ecuador and I moved to Florida when I was in 8th grade. I graduated high school in South Florida and went to the University of Florida to get my undergraduate degree in Chemistry. When I am not at lab I spend a lot of time with my dog Atlas. We love going on walks together and he enjoys any and every body of water. Aside from that, I have recently been enjoying the peacefulness and simplicity of farm life (playing Stardew Valley).Project ideas
Epigenetics and Histone Post Translational Modifications Scientific Review
The DNA inside the cell nucleus is about 2 meters long, yet it fits inside the very small nucleus of the cell. In order to make this happen cells have to dramatically compact their DNA into structures called chromatin. The way that the DNA is packaged has a lot of influence over which genes get expressed and which don't, this is called epigenetics. The most basic unit of chromatin is the nucleosome, which is made up of small proteins called histones. Histones have flexible tails that can be modified and every modification has an effect on how chromatin is organized. For this project, you will pick a specific histone post translational modification, we will read scientific literature about it together, and you will write a review based on what you learned. Reading and understanding scientific literature is a really important skill to have as a scientist and together you will learn the skill of gathering information and synthesizing your own scientific writing!