Variant Effect Seminar Series Committee
Ohanna Bezerra
Pronouns: She/Her
Ohanna is a CANSSI STAGE postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She applies statistical methods in DNA methylation and whole genome sequencing data to understand the epidemiological, genetic, and epigenetic determinants of complex diseases. A molecular biologist by training, Ohanna received a master’s and PhD degree in Genetic Epidemiology from the Oswaldo Cruz Institution in Brazil, where she studied genetic susceptibility of infectious diseases in admixed population.
Social: @ohannaclb
Mariano Martín
Mariano is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in the “Protein phase transitions in health and disease” lab, under the supervision of Drs. Benedetta Bolognesi and Ben Lehner. Mariano aims to understand how amino acids changes affects amyloid aggregation using massively parallel reporter assays. He received his Ph.D. from National University of Cordoba, Argentina, where he studied how variants in sodium iodide symporter (NIS) may cause congenital hypothyroidism, supervised by Dr. Juan Pablo Nicola. As part of his Ph.D. training, Mariano did a short-term fellowship in Yale University under the supervision of Dr. Nancy Carrasco.
Ziyi
Dai
Pronouns: She/Her
Ziyi is a PhD student in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Dr. Gregory Costain. Her doctoral research focuses on leveraging large-scale genome sequencing data to investigate variant effects and their transmission within human populations. In addition to her primary research, Ziyi actively participates in workgroups dedicated to newborn sequencing and engages in scientific outreach initiatives.
Matteo Cagiada
Pronouns: He/Him
Matteo is a Novo Nordisk Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford / University of Copenhagen, where he is supervised by Prof. Charlotte Deane and Prof. Philip Biggin. Matteo's current research interests are in immunoinformatics, computational structural biology and variant effect prediction. During his Ph.D. in Biology, supervised by Prof. Kresten Lindorff-Larsen at the University of Copenhagen, Matteo worked on understanding the mechanisms behind loss-of-function and built predictors to classify variants based on their effects on proteins.
Jingyou Rao
Pronouns: She/Her
Jingyou is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she conducts research under the guidance of Dr. Harold Pimentel. Her work focuses on developing rigorous statistical inference frameworks tailored to diverse types of deep mutational scanning data. Additionally, she is informally co-mentored by Dr. Willow Coyote-Maestas at the University of California, San Francisco, where she enjoys bridging computational analysis with experimental biochemistry and biophysics.
Social:
@JingyouR on Twitter @jingyour.bsky.social
Adelaide Tovar
Pronouns: She/They
Adelaide is an NHGRI MOSAIC K99/R00 postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan where she works with Drs. Stephen Parker and Jacob Kitzman. She completed her PhD training in statistical genetics and genomics to study gene-environment interactions. Currently, she leads a multi-institution effort to characterize all noncoding variants associated with type 2 diabetes across cell types and stimulation states using massively parallel reporter assays. With the support of her K99/R00 award, she is building a research program to study broad aspects of complex disease including network circuitry disrupted along the continuum of monogenic and polygenic human diseases.
Social:
@ade__lady on Twitter
@adel-aide.bsky.social
Priyanka Bajaj
Pronouns: She/Her
Priyanka is a postdoctoral fellow, co-mentored by Prof. James Fraser and Dr. Willow Coyote-Maestas at UCSF. She is interested in integrating deep sequencing with machine learning techniques to determine the structural basis of fusion protein-driven oncogenesis. She did her Ph.D. at Indian Institute of Science under the supervision of Prof. Raghavan Vardarajan. She developed high-throughput screens using deep mutational scanning to study the effects of mutations on protein activity, stability, and co-translational folding.
Social:
@priyanka_bajaj3
@priyankabajaj.bsky.social
Previous Members
Mireia Seuma
Organizing Committee (Institute for Bioengineering of Catalunya (IBEC))
Steven Erwood
Organizing Committee (Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard)
Diego Calderon
Organizing Committee (University of Washington)
Adrine de Souza
Organizing Committee (University of Toronto)
Yann Ilboudo
Organizing Committee (McGill University)