Lasseigne Lab

Lasseigne Lab

Because Science.

Our research focuses on developing approaches for assaying and integrating omics data, functional annotations, and patient information to discover novel mechanisms in disease etiology and progression, therapeutic targets, and circulating biomarkers.

Current Members
Alumni
Furry Friends


Current Members

Brittany

Brittany Lasseigne, PhD

Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor

Dr. Lasseigne is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, an Associate Scientist in both the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center Experimental Therapeutics Program and the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and a Scientist in both the Informatics Institute and the Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She previously completed a BS in Biological Engineering at Mississippi State University, an interdisciplinary biology, chemistry, and chemical engineering PhD in Biotechnology Science and Engineering from The University of Alabama in Huntsville, and a postdoctoral fellowship in genetics and genomics at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. Brittany is passionate about developing and applying genomics technologies to human diseases and teaching data science to students and scientists of all backgrounds.

Brittany's Publications and Grants

bnp0001[@]uab.edu


Amanda

Amanda Clark, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Amanda is an IRACDA-MERIT Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She completed a B.S. in Molecular Biology at UAB and a PhD in Biology at Auburn University. Amanda is passionate about integrating computational thinking and data science into undergraduate biology education, the evolutionary dynamics of complex systems, and comparative multi-omics for human disease modeling.


Emma

Emma Jones

Graduate Research Assistant

Emma is a current PhD student in the Genomics, Genetics, and Bioinformatics theme within the UAB Graduate Biomedical Sciences program, and is also a UAB Neuroscience Roadmap Scholar. She graduated in 2019 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Studio Art from California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt in Arcata, California. Emma has a research background in psychology, neuroscience, cellular and molecular biology, and genomics. She is currently building on those skills by working on the best way to study transcriptional diversity in the brain, and how changes in diversity at the isoform level can relate to disease.


Jen

Jen Fisher

Graduate Research Assistant

Jen is a current PhD student in the Genomics, Genetics, and Bioinformatics theme within the UAB Graduate Biomedical Sciences program. She is supported by UAB’s AMC21 Scholars program. In 2019, she earned a B.S. in Biological Engineering with a minor in Mathematics from Mississippi State University. Jen is currently developing machine learning and network approaches to improve drug repurposing candidate selection and avoiding side effects due to sex differences. She is applying her methods in two rare diseases: Friedreich’s Ataxia & Glioblastoma multiforme.


Jordan

Jordan Whitlock

Graduate Research Assistant

Jordan is a current PhD student in the Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics theme within the UAB Graduate Biomedical Sciences program. She has a B.S. in Genetics and Genomic Sciences from UAB. Her projects and interests focus on developing and applying disease-agnostic computational approaches to understand the role of context dependency across and within disease. Jordan has a particular heart for rare diseases. She is currently investigating the role of cell-specificity in tissue-specific Mendelian disease manifestations. Using renal- and neurological-associated phenotypes as a test set, she is employing a combination of wet-lab and computational approaches involving expression and regulatory networks to identify the underlying drivers of Mendelian disease.


Lizzy

Lizzy Wilk

Researcher III

Lizzy earned her B.S. in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Alabama at Huntsville and M.S. in Biotechnology with a specialization in Bioinformatics from University of Maryland Global Campus. Prior to working at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, she applied genomics technologies such as RNA-Seq for understanding cancer and chemotherapy resistance as a research assistant. Lizzy currently works as a staff scientist, applying transfer learning and drug repurposing methods to gene expression data.


Tabea

Tabea Soelter

Graduate Research Assistant

Tabea is a current PhD student and Alzheimer’s of Central Alabama (ACA) Lindy Harrell Predoctoral Scholar in the Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics theme within the UAB Graduate Biomedical Sciences program. She has a B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Piedmont University. Tabea is currently investigating the cell-type-specific role of cell-cell communication between neuronal and non-neuronal cell populations in Alzheimer's disease using public human data. She is also interested in the effects of aging on the Alzheimer’s disease brain and therefore employs wet-lab and computational approaches to understand age-associated changes in cell-cell communication using her own mouse sequencing data across multiple timepoints.


TC

TC Howton, PhD

Scientist I and Lab Manager

T.C. earned his PhD in Biology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During his doctoral studies, T.C. focused on using network-based approaches to elucidate the molecular interactions between plants and bacterial pathogens. T.C. is currently serving as a lab manager as well as research scientist within the Lasseigne lab.


Victoria

Victoria Flanary

Graduate Research Assistant

Victoria is an MD/PhD graduate trainee in the UAB Medical Scientist Training Program. She graduated from UAB in 2020 with a B.S. in Neuroscience, along with minors in Biology and Chemistry. Her background in conducting translational research for glioblastoma has inspired her to pursue a scientific career aimed toward maximizing clinical therapies for various malignancies, primarily via utilizing computational genomic data to advance precision medicine for cancer.


Vishal

Vishal H. Oza, PhD

Scientist II

Vishal is a Scientist II in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine. He got his PhD from University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa where he developed methods for constructing network models of Drosophila melanogaster metabolome from untargeted metabolomics data and integrating with genome and proteome, thus building a multilayered network model. His research interests include developing mathematical models using machine learning and network science to understand biological complexity.


Our Alumni

Nathaniel DeVoss

Undergraduate Research Assistant (2022-2023)

Currently: Undergraduate Student, University of Alabama at Birmingham


Anisha Haldar

Undergraduate Research Assistant (2021-2023)

Currently: Undergraduate Student, University of Alabama at Birmingham


Avery Williams

Undergraduate Research Assistant (2019-2023)

Currently: Graduate Student, Biomedical Sciences PhD Program, University of California, San Diego


Ryan Brownlee

Undergraduate Research Assistant / KURE Student (2022)

Currently: Undergraduate Student, Mercer University


Sasha Thalluri

Undergraduate Research Assistant (2019-2022)

Currently: Medical Student, Heersink School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham


Hannah Cleary

Undergraduate Research Assistant / KURE Student (2021)

Currently: Medical Student, University of Kentucky


Emily Page

Research Assistant / Grad PREP Scholar (2020-2021)

Currently: Graduate Student, Genetics, Genomics, and Bioinformatics, University of Alabama at Birmingham


Kasi McPherson, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow (2020-2021)

Currently: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Alabama at Birmingham


Drew Hardigan, PhD

Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow (2020)

Currently: Neurosurgery Resident, Duke University


Randi Wood

Researcher IV and Lab Manager (2019-2020)


Roshan Darji

Computational Biologist (2019)

Currently: Department of Biostatistics, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University



Past Rotation Students

Jack Hoover (2020)

Shaurita Hutchins (2020)


Furry Friends

April

April Jones

Owner: Emma

Gotcha Day: April 10, 2018

Likes: Warm laps, cuddles, and routines

Dislikes: Strangers and closed doors

Fun Fact: Only has 3 legs!


Mango

Mango Flanary

Owner: Victoria

Birthday: May 10, 2021

Likes: Bathrooms, cheek scratches, cat tv

Dislikes: Long car rides


Bagley

Bagley (Bag-boo) Florence Fisher

Owner: Jen

Gotcha Day: May 19th, 2020

Likes: Dog cookies, peanut butter, and balls

Dislikes: Rain and the dark


Lily

Lily (Lily Lou) Williams

Owner: Avery (Alum)

Gotcha Day: sometime in 2006

Likes: Licking windows, attention, and her catnip banana

Dislikes: Getting wet and vacuums


Mac

Mac Aroniandcheese Lasseigne (aka Mac)

Owners: The Lasseignes

Birthday: July 4, 2019

Likes: Exploring new places, people and their food


Methyl and Isla

Methyl and Isla Thalluri

Owner: Sasha (Alum)

Birthday: 3.8-billion years ago

Likes: Outside

Dislikes: Hard headed people


Partho

Partho Oza

Owner: Vishal

Birthday: Jauary 19th, 2020

Likes: Playing fetch

Dislikes: Sitting idle


PJ

Peanut Junior (PJ) Soelter

Owner: Tabea

Birthday: August 4th, 2018

Likes: Sleeping in the sun, treats, and attention

Dislikes: Closed doors


Poirot

Poirot Oza

Owner: Vishal

Birthday: August 18th, 2015

Likes: Exploring

Dislikes: Flies


Sadie

Sadie Jones

Owner: Emma

Gotcha Day: September 15th, 2019

Likes: Playing fetch, butt rubs, and smelly shoes

Dislikes: Getting nails trimmed


Basil

Basil Jones

Owner: Emma

Gotcha Day: November 14, 2022

Likes: COMFY COUCHES AND GOING TO BED EARLY

Dislikes: CENTRAL HEATING TURNING ON

Fun Fact: Dances when she is happy


Sophie

Sophie Howton

Owner: TC

Birthday: April 12th, 2010

Likes: Sleeping and treats

Dislikes: Cardboard boxes


William

William Soelter-Patterson

Owner: Tabea

Gotcha Day: Oct 6th, 2020

Likes: Food, toys, and his dog park friends

Dislikes: Rain and kids


Wrigley

Wrigley Whitlock

Owner: Jordan

Gotcha Day: September 15th, 2016

Likes: His Squeaky ball, hikes, and watching baseball

Dislikes: Being alone

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