Project Mentor

Dr. Jean-Denis Beaudoin
Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences

Undergraduate Research Opportunity Description

Project Description	The trainee will have the opportunity to use CRISPR technologies to generate zebrafish loss of function mutant of RNA helicases. This project includes bioinformatics search of RNA helicase candidates, design of CRISPR strategies, injection of CRISPRs in zebrafish embryos, genotyping fish to find mutant alleles and look for developmental and molecular defects in loss of function mutants. Depending on the trainee’s interest, there is also a possibility of using cell lines to study translation regulation using transfection and massive parallel reporter assays (measuring the regulatory activity of thousands of sequences in a single experiment using high throughput sequencing).
Project Direction	Our lab is opening January 3rd 2020! Our lab aims to understand RNA structure functions in gene regulation during vertebrate development. We hypothesize that RNA helicases are fundamental regulators of gene expression during development through their ability to modify RNA structures. This plans to characterize the role and molecular mechanisms of RNA helicases during vertebrate development using CRISPR technologies and genome-wide approaches (e.i. RNA-seq, Ribo-seq, eCLIP and DMS-seq). Please visit beaudoinlab.org for more information about the lab.
Mentorship and Supervision	The student will have multiple individual meetings a week with PI. The student will also attend weekly lab meeting. The student will receive direct mentoring from PI and/or postdoc for experiments. Feedback will be provided daily.
Student Qualifications	Strong interest for scientific research Motivated students Eager to learn new things Basics in molecular biology (PCR, handling of DNA sequence, etc) Any bioinformatics skills will be seen positively
Summer Schedule Options	Research Dates: May 26 to July 31, 2020 Schedule: M-F, 8:30am-5pm
Project Continuation	Fall 2020, Spring 2021
Academic Year Time Commitment	6- 9 hours/week
Possible Thesis Project	Yes

Application

Submit an online application for this research opportunity at https://quest.uconn.edu/prog/HRP20-3. The application deadline is Monday, February 3, 2020.

This application requires a cover letter, a resume or CV, an unofficial transcript, a brief statement of research interests, and a brief statement of career interests.