The Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology's weekly Plant Pathology 250 seminar series is presented this week by:

Melissa Gomez, Microbiology Graduate Student (M.S.), UC Riverside

Seminar Title: "Genome Engineering With RNA-Integrating Targetable Endonucleases to Enhance Transgene Insertion in Mammalian Cells"

Biography: Melissa Gomez completed her B.S. in Cell, Molecular, and Developmental Biology at UC Riverside in 2016. She joined the Microbiology program in 2021 where she is now a graduate student in Dr. Thomas Kuhlman's lab, investigating novel methods of genome editing in complex mammalian systems derived from the interactions of a bacterial Cas9 protein and human transposons. 

&

Jorge Pastrana, Microbiology Graduate Student (PhD), UC Riverside 

Seminar Title: "Examining the effects of soil depth on bacterial communities in the Critical Zone"

Biography: Jorge is a 2nd year PhD Student in Dr. Emma Aronson's Lab. His research focuses on the microbial aspect of the Critical Zone Network Project. He received both his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biological Sciences from Cal State San Marcos. It was during his time here that he really got interested in the fields of soil microbial ecology and biogeochemistry. 

Faculty Hosts: Dr. Emma Aronson; emma.aronson@ucr.edu