Madeline Mayday, BS, and Noah Yann Lee, BS, were recently awarded prestigious Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Awards (F31) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Madeline is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the laboratory of Diane Krause, MD, PhD, Anthony N. Brady Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Professor of Pathology, and Noah is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the laboratory of Steven Kleinstein, PhD, Anthony N. Brady Professor of Pathology.
Madeline’s thesis work focuses on uncovering the molecular mechanisms driving a rare form of pediatric leukemia, AMKL, which has a variable survival rate. To date, no targeted therapy has been identified to treat the disease. In infants, a major mutation causing AMKL is RBM15-MKL1, which, due to the unique fusion between an m6A writer protein and a transcriptional cofactor, has the potential to induce leukemia at the genome, transcriptome, and epitranscriptome level. Madeline's research aims to identify the RNA targets of the fusion protein and investigate their involvement in leukemogenesis to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms driving pediatric AMKL.
Noah’s research aims to develop computational methods accelerating human immunoglobulin (Ig) characterization, improve coverage and accuracy of Ig gene analysis, and identify modular associations with diseases and immunological outcomes. More specifically, he is studying how single-cell data can be exploited to improve methods of analysis and adapting machine learning methods to immunology.
F31 funding awards from the NIH are designed to help promising predoctoral students develop into productive, independent research scientists through mentored research training while conducting dissertation research.