PI
Courtney Babbitt, Ph.D
Graduate Students
Christopher Claypool
Chris is a Ph.D. student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. The lab is interested in primate neural evolution and Chris is particularly interested in the evolution and development of the brain and cognition in great apes, including humans. His current research is looking at the evolution of the prefrontal cortex, an expanded region of the great ape brain that allows for higher cognitive functions in humans. He also works with primate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to generate brain cells in vitro to investigate brain evolution on a cell-type specific level.
Chris is a Ph.D. student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. The lab is interested in primate neural evolution and Chris is particularly interested in the evolution and development of the brain and cognition in great apes, including humans. His current research is looking at the evolution of the prefrontal cortex, an expanded region of the great ape brain that allows for higher cognitive functions in humans. He also works with primate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to generate brain cells in vitro to investigate brain evolution on a cell-type specific level.
Katherine Rickelton
Katie is a Ph.D. student in the UMass Molecular and Cellular Biology Program. In the Babbitt Lab, her research focuses on the evolution of the primate cerebellum, specifically in the context of cognition and uniquely-human traits. Katie is also interested in looking at primate brain evolution from the cellular level, in order to understand functional differences between neuronal cell types – such as astrocytes. She hopes to eventually extend these cell-type specific studies to full-organoid based structures for analyses. Katie works primarily with RNA-seq data and various bioinformatics programs, as well as with primate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to investigate primate brain evolution.
Katie is a Ph.D. student in the UMass Molecular and Cellular Biology Program. In the Babbitt Lab, her research focuses on the evolution of the primate cerebellum, specifically in the context of cognition and uniquely-human traits. Katie is also interested in looking at primate brain evolution from the cellular level, in order to understand functional differences between neuronal cell types – such as astrocytes. She hopes to eventually extend these cell-type specific studies to full-organoid based structures for analyses. Katie works primarily with RNA-seq data and various bioinformatics programs, as well as with primate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to investigate primate brain evolution.
Previous Graduate Students
Jason Pizzollo
Jason is a Ph.D. student in the Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) program. Our lab is interested in genomic elements that control cancer rates in humans and chimpanzees. While the rates for most cancer types are similar between our species, chimpanzees have significantly lower rates of epithelial cancers than humans. Although part of this is environmental, we believe there is a genetic component as well. To investigate these differences, we use fibroblast cell lines in which we induce a serum response. In 2004 Chang et. al. showed that fibroblasts exposed to serum have a gene expression signature that is similar to the gene expression profile in many human tumors. Therefore, we can use the serum response in human and chimpanzee fibroblasts to to study the differences in gene expression between our species. I am analyzing RNA-seq and DNase-seq data to investigate gene expression profiles and to correlate expression with active regulatory elements. We hypothesize that the gene expression patterns in the fibroblast serum response are different between human and that these patterns are due to differences in regulatory element activity. |
Trisha Zintel
Trisha is a Ph.D. student in the Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) program. Primates, particular humans and chimpanzees, differ proportionately less at the genetic level than at the phenotypic level. Her current research focuses on investigating how these well-documented differences in traits amongst primates are influenced by differences in gene expression and, by extension, cellular phenotype. Current projects include 1) whole-transcriptome and differential expression analysis of primate brain regions, 2) use of induced-pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology to study cell-type specific differences in gene expression between primate species, and 3) investigating differences in cell adhesion and motility of human and chimpanzee fibroblasts. |
Undergraduate Researchers
