Genetics, Biomedical Computing and Genomics Seminar – Novel Approaches to Doing Whole Genome Editing

“Eye on Genome Editing”

Krzysztof Palczewski, PhD, is a UCI Distinguished Professor and Donald Bren Professor in the Departments of Ophthalmology and Physiology and Biophysics and holds the Irving H. Leopold Chair in Ophthalmology in the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, School of Medicine, UCI.

Professor Palczewski received his MS and PhD degrees from University of Wroclaw and Technical University of Wroclaw, respectively (Poland). He has moved up the professorial ranks at several institutions, including U of Washington in Seattle, and Case Western Reserve.  He was recruited to UCI in 2018.  Among other accomplishments in the short time Professor Palczewski has been at UCI, he has recruited additional outstanding vision researchers, and founded the Center for Translational Vision Research which was recently awarded a NIH P30 program grant.  He is a recipient of the prestigious Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science and is a member of the US National Academy of Medicine and member of the National Academy of Sciences.  Professor Palczewski is known for characterizing crystal structures of native and activated forms of the G protein-coupled receptor, rhodopsin, involved in eyesight. His group has probed the inner structure of the eye using 2 photon microscopy. His research includes understanding hereditary diseases of the eye with the goal of tailored therapeutics.  He will be speaking today about recent developments in CRISPR editing.

“Rapid Functional Testing of Human Noncoding Disease Variants in Live Mice”

Ethan Hollingsworth is an MD PhD student in his third year in the Evgeny Kvon Lab, Developmental and Cell Biology.  Ethan received his B.S. in Zoology and Neuroscience from Miami University of Ohio. His work is focused on understanding how non-coding mutations cause human disease.