Research interest: Wet Lab Dry LAb UNH *Graduate school *Genetics Program *Hubbard Center for Genome Studies

I am trained in bioinformatics programming, molecular biology and genetics. In the lab I have worked with bacteria, yeast, nematodes and mouse as model organism. In the wet lab: My current research interests fall in the areas of comparative genomics and genome informatics. I am currently conducting my thesis research on bacteria nematode interactions that lead to the creation of entomopathogenic partnerships that could potentially be engineered to kill insect pests and disease vectors. To this end, I have sequenced the whole genome of a novel Serratia species that form such associations with the laboratory strain of C. elegans and C. briggsae. Since several strains of the nematodes have been sequenced I am interested to find out any factors that are responsible for the association described in our lab. Through comparative genomic studied of our bacteria with the established entomopathogenic bacteria, Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus, as well as comparative studies of expression profiles of the nematode grown with or without the bacterial associate, I am investigating what the determinants of this association, that holds a great potential for genetic enhancement as both partners are amenable to routine genetic engineering, could be. In bioinformatics: I have a bioinformatics postgraduate diploma and I am trained in C, Perl, Java and database programming (PlSql etc). However my present programming is centered in Perl as it gives me access to everything in bioinformatics. I routinely use my expertise in bioinformatics programming to create new programs that allow me to test specific questions in my investigations as well as to adopt programs created by other researchers to fit my particular purposes. I am also interested in developing a mini bioinformatics tool that can serve both as a demonstration tool in bioinformatics programming instruction as well as serving as a versatile and handy gadget to the researcher before resorting to the high caliber or commercial applications.