Barbara Mellone, Ph.D. | She/Her
I am an Associate Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and the head of the Genetics and Genomics Program in the MCB Department. Before UConn, I was a postdoctoral fellow with Gary Karpen at the LBNL and UC Berkeley. I did my PhD at the Medical Research Council, Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the laboratory of Robin Allshire. I developed a passion for chromosomes when I was an undergraduate at the University of Milan, Italy. Barbara.Mellone@uconn.edu |
Luoxuan Ouyang
Research Assistant Luoxuan received her Bachelor of Medicine in Clinical Laboratory Science from Jiangsu University in China and her Professional Science Master from the University of Connecticut. She joined the lab in 2019 and is studying centromere-derived RNAs and ectopic centromere formation in the germ line. Luoxuan.Ouyang@uconn.edu |
Tyler McDermott
PhD student Tyler received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Pace University and his M.S. in Biomedical Forensic Sciences from Boston University. He joined the lab in 2020 and is investigating the functional relationship between retroelements and centromeric proteins. Tyler.McDermott@uconn.edu |
Asna Amjad
PhD student Asna received her BS in Bioinformatics from the Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan and her MS in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at University of Texas at Dallas. She joined the lab in 2021 and her project uses chromatin profiling and and PRO-seq data to study de novo centromere formation and centromeric transcripts. Asna.Amjad@uconn.edu |
Ashley Latibeaudiere
MS student Ashley joined the lab in 2020 to complete her thesis Master in Genetics and Genomics. She obtained her BS in biochemistry from Vassar University in 2019. Her project focuses on histone modifications and retroelement silencing at the centromere. Ashley.Latibeaudiere@uconn.edu |
Venkata Patchigolla
Undergraduate Assistant (Beckman Scholar) Venkata is a sophomore in molecular and cell biology. He joined the lab in the fall of 2019 and is establishing a new system to test the inheritance of de novo centromeres during fly development. He is also using computational approaches to determine if non-B DNA is enriched at centromeres. Venkata.Patchigolla@uconn.edu |