My research focuses on the role of both the microbiome and epigenetics in human health. My contributions to these fields is through the bioinformatic analysis of the next-generation sequencing and high-density microarrays which provide hundreds of thousands to millions of data points per sample.

Biography

My research interests concern the role of the human microbiome and epigenetics in human and environmental health. The human microbiome affects a surprisingly broad spectrum of disease states including inflammatory bowel disease and ulcerative colitis, periodontal disease, infections, and malnutrition to name a few. Epigenetic changes caused by early and in-utero exposure to toxicants can impact adult health through DNA methylation. Both research areas use emerging technologies such as next-generation sequencing and microarrays that generate extremely large datasets. My expertise is in the data analysis using bioinformatic tools designed for these new methods.

Affiliations

Assistant Research Scientist, Marine Biological Laboratory

Funded Research

NSF Biological Databases and Infrastructure. Expanding visualization and analysis tools for comparative microbial ecology ($769,827 over 3 years)

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