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 Lasseigne, Ph.D.
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
Anisha Haldar
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Anisha is an undergraduate research assistant majoring in Immunology and is part of the Personalized Honors Program and the Early Medical School Acceptance Program at UAB. She has previously contributed to projects relating to wound healing, the impact of hormonal therapy on the microbiome, and transcription activation and repression in neuron development. In the Lasseigne Lab, Anisha is contributing to cross-species and network genomics analyses.
Avery Williams
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Avery is an undergraduate research assistant and RACE21 Cancer Biology Scholar majoring in Genetics and Genomic Sciences and a part of the Science and Technology honors program. She is responsible for the lab website and collaborates on multiple projects for the lab. Her current focus is working with comprehensive Glioblastoma RNA profiles to identify optimal research model systems and patient avatars, as well as understand Glioblastoma-associated blood and brain gene expression profiles.
Emily Page
Research Assistant / Grad PREP Scholar
Emily is in the Graduate PREP Scholars program at UAB, which is a one year training program for students who are seeking graduate degrees in the biomedical sciences. She earned her B.S. in Biology, majoring in Biomedical Sciences from University of Alabama at Birmingham. Some of her favorite previous work included Corynebacterium Bacteriophage gene analysis and color Gene analysis of Glacier Bears.
Emma Jones
Graduate Research Assistant
Emma is a current Ph.D. student in the genetic, genomics, and bioinformatics theme within UAB’s GBS program. She graduated in 2019 with a B.A. in psychology and a minor in studio art from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. Emma has a background in psychology, neuroscience, molecular biology, and genomics. Her research interests primarily focus on the incorporation of these methods to study psychiatric disorders.
Hannah Cleary
Undergraduate Research Assistant / KURE Student
Hannah is an undergraduate research assistant participating in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Kidney Undergraduate Research Experience (KURE). She is a current student at the University of Kentucky pursuing a degree in Agricultural and Medical Biotechnology and a minor in Biology. Her summer project is focused on evaluating a drug repurposing package for polycystic kidney disease utilizing a computational approach. In August, Hannah will return to the University of Kentucky for one more year before attending medical school in the Fall of 2022.
Jen Fisher
Graduate Research Assistant
Jen is a current Ph.D. 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 Whitlock
Graduate Research Assistant
Jordan is a current Ph.D. 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.
Kasi McPherson, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Kasi is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the IRACDA-MERIT Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She obtained her PhD in Medical Pharmacology from University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson MS where her research projected was focused on testing pharmacological agents as potential treatments of obesity related kidney disease using a novel genetic rat model of obesity. Her current research interest includes application of data science-based methods to identify therapeutic targets for cardiovascular diseases, particularly in high-risk population.
Lizzy Ramsey
Researcher III and Lab Manager
Lizzy earned her B.S. in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Alabama at Huntsville. 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.
Sasha Thalluri
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Sasha is an honors undergraduate student majoring in Genetics and Genomic Sciences at UAB. She is a part of our genomic instabilities project, which is geared towards gathering and analyzing genomics data to create predictive models of human cancer. She is currently applying computational approaches to compare and contrast different types of chromosomal instability and DNA methylation instability metrics.
Tabea Soelter
Graduate Research Assistant
Tabea is a current Ph.D. student 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 College (now Piedmont University). Tabea is currently investigating the cell-type-specific role of chromosomal instability and its effects on cell-cell interactions between neuronal and non-neuronal cell populations in Alzheimer's disease by employing a combination of wet-lab and computational approaches.
TC Howton, Ph.D.
Researcher IV 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 Flanary
Graduate Rotation Student
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 Oza, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Vishal is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 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. His research interests include analyzing high dimensional biological data using machine learning and network theory. His current research involves multiomics data integration in cancer and developing network based approaches to compare n=1 patient profiles.
Our Alumni
Roshan Darji
Computational Biologist (2019)
Currently: Department of Biostatistics, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University
Randi Wood
Researcher IV and Lab Manager (2019-2020)
Drew Hardigan. Ph.D.
Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow (2020)
Currently: Neurosurgery Resident, Duke University
Past Rotation Students
Jack Hoover (2020)
Shaurita Hutchins (2020)
Furry Friends
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!
Bagley (Bag-boo) Florence Fisher
Owner: Jen
Gotcha Day: May 19th, 2020
Likes: Dog cookies, peanut butter, and balls
Dislikes: Rain and the dark
Bayou (black) and Lacy (white) McPherson-Adams
Owners: The McPherson-Adams Family
Gotcha Days: Bayou - Dec. 25th, 2018 | Lacy - Dec. 10th, 2012
Likes: Bayou - Jumping over everything and annoying his sister | Lacy - Lounging in her plush bed by the window while watching TV
Fun Fact: Lacy’s favorite movie is Men in Black II
Lily (Lily Lou) Williams
Owner: Avery
Gotcha Day: sometime in 2006
Likes: Licking windows, attention, and her catnip banana
Dislikes: Getting wet and vacuums
Mac Aroniandcheese Lasseigne (aka Mac)
Owners: The Lasseignes
Birthday: July 4, 2019
Likes: Exploring new places, people and their food
Partho Oza
Owner: Vishal
Birthday: Jauary 19th, 2020
Likes: Playing fetch
Dislikes: Sitting Idle
Peanut Junior (PJ) Soelter
Owner: Tabea
Birthday: August 4th, 2018
Likes: Sleeping in the sun, treats, and attention
Dislikes: Closed doors
Poirot Oza
Owner: Vishal
Birthday: August 18th, 2015
Likes: Exploring
Dislikes: Flies
Sadie Jones
Owner: Emma
Gotcha Day: September 15th, 2019
Likes: Playing fetch, butt rubs, and smelly shoes
Dislikes: Getting nails trimmed
Sophie Howton
Owner: TC
Birthday: April 12th, 2010
Likes: Sleeping and treats
Dislikes: Cardboard boxes
William Soelter-Patterson
Owner: Tabea
Gotcha Day: Oct 6th, 2020
Likes: Food, toys, and his dog park friends
Dislikes: Rain and kids
Wrigley Whitlock
Owner: Jordan
Gotcha Day: September 15th, 2016
Likes: His Squeaky ball, hikes, and watching baseball
Dislikes: Being alone