Programmer

Arda has a Master degree in Molecular Biology, Genetics and Bioengineering from Sabanci University. Even though his major is in Genetics, he is highly interested in Bioinformatics and has been thriving to improve in this field, for more than 3 years. Arda has experience in both academia and the private sector. In academia, he was a member of Adebali Lab, during his Master’s, working on unveiling the effect of histone markers on the Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER) mechanism. He worked on different sequencing techniques such as DNA-seq, Damage-seq, XR-seq, ChIP-seq, and the DNase-seq. Later, in the private sector, he worked for RTA Laboratories where he was responsible for designing WES/somatic germline pipelines for cancer diagnosis, writing commercial use only algorithms for SNP and INDEL detection, and contributing to the development of some in-house bioinformatics software’s.  Currently, Arda is working in the Cruchaga Lab to preprocess and analyze WES and WGS data.

Priyanka is a Bioinformatics Research analyst in the Cruchaga lab and she manages GWAS and WGS data.
She received her second Masters degree in Bioinformatics from Indiana University after her first Masters degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from JSS University, India. She has fours years of experience in an academic setting before shifting her career towards research with a focus on genomics. Before joining the lab she worked on integrative analysis of high-throughput multi-omics and neuroimaging data to better understand neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's. Her previous research includes exploring genotype-phenotype associations using bioinformatic approaches to reveal novel biomarkers for designing new drugs and treatment
protocols. Her research interests include, but are not limited to, machine learning, network science, biomarker discovery, and multi-omics data integration.

Matt is a bioinformaticist working in the Cruchaga Lab. He has a BS in Biology, a Master's of Arts in Teaching, an MS in Computer Science, and has experience as a high school STEM teacher and curriculum specialist. He leverages this training and experience to assist researchers in the lab and optimize bioinformatics software and pipelines to meet the demands of large-scale omics analyses. He works primarily with whole genome and whole exome sequencing data, processing and making the data available for analysis.

Jessie received her MS in Biostatistics and Data Science from Washington University in St. Louis, and has a BS in Biochemistry. Since joining the Cruchaga Lab as a bioinformatics research analyst, she has been working on processing and analyzing RNA sequencing data in order to identify changes in gene expression in Alzheimer disease.

Rachael is a Programmer I working in the Cruchaga lab. She received her Software Development and Security BS from University of Maryland Global Campus. Before joining the lab, she worked as a Data Analyst with an investment research firm.

Jigyasha has a Bachelor’s degree in Dentistry and received her Master’s in Health Informatics and Bioinformatics from Grand Valley State University. Her work in the Cruchaga Lab focuses on the analysis of multi-omics data to identify novel QTLs associated with Alzheimer disease.