Lab Members
Michael Whitfield
Principal Investigator
Dr. Whitfield is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics at Dartmouth Medical School. He graduated with honors from North Carolina State University with degrees in biochemistry and chemistry. He received his PhD from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in Biochemistry and Biophysics working with Dr. William Marzluff and then performed post-doctoral training with Drs. David Botstein and Patrick Brown at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Whitfield was awarded the 2002 Paper of the Year by the American Society for Cell Biology (Whitfield et al. 2002 MBC), he was a V Scholar for Cancer Research, was named a Hulda Irene Duggan Arthritis Investigator, and is the recipient of multiple NIH grants. When not in lab, he can often been found racing his bike with Team HUP United.
Lionel Brooks III
Graduate Student
Lee holds a B.S. in Biology from St. Michael's College. While at St. Mike's Lee contributed to Dr. Mark Lubkowitz's investigations of the evolution of conserved non-coding elements in the grasses. Lee's undergraduate research was conducted under the auspices of funding granted by the Vermont Genetics Network (VGN) and the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). Following graduation from St. Mike's, Lee worked in the lab of Dr. Michael J. Scanlon as a research technician using the "Laser Microdissection-Microarray" approach to facilitate investigations of the gene expression profiles of subdomains of the shoot apical meristem in Zea maize. Now in the Whitfield Lab, Lee is designing a tiling array platform that will be useful for interrogation of a variety of biological processes in human research models including RNA transport, translation and splicing. Also, Lee is utilizing deep sequencing technology to define cis-elements that play crucial roles in RNA biology.
Sarah Pendergrass
Graduate Student
Sarah came to the Whitfield lab by way of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, where she received an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering. At Thayer School, in the labs of Dr. Paul Meaney and Dr. Marvin Doyley, she researched alternative breast cancer imaging modalities as well as alternative atherosclerosis imaging methods. Here, in the Whitfield Lab, Sarah is using microarray technology to investigate the genome-wide gene expression profiles of skin and blood samples from patients with the autoimmune disease systemic sclerosis (SSc) to identify biomarkers and to extend and validate SSc subsets. When Sarah is not working hard in the lab, she donates time to support local good-will causes such as the The Haven, a local shelter for homeless families.
Gavin Grant
Graduate Student
Gavin is originally from Vermont and received his B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Boston University. Gavin is currently studying how the transcription factor FOXM1 controls the transition from G2 phase of the cell cycle to M phase. He is also studying the cell cycle-regulated gene expression profiles in U2OS cells and the regulation of the U2OS cell cycle by various Forkhead Box proteins using a novel luciferase assay.
Lacy George
Graduate Student
Lacy is originally from Atlanta, GA, and earned her B.S. in Biology cum laude from Mercer University in Macon, GA. She is currently working on a previously unannotated cell cycle-regulated gene, Fam64A. Using microarray data of hierarchically clustered cell cycle-regulated genes, she hypothesized that the protein is involved in spindle assembly, and indeed found that knockdown of Fam64A with siRNA leads to an increase in monopolar spindles. She is currently working to further characterize the function of Fam64A and determine the mechanisms that lead to this spindle defect. She is also working to identify cell cycle-regulated genes in an untransformed cell line to investigate cell type-specific differences in cell cycle-regulated genes.
Jennifer Sargent
Graduate Student
Jenn is originally from Brisbane Australia where she received a BSc and Honors Class I in Biochemistry from the University of Queensland. Before coming to the Whitfield Lab, Jenn was a post-graduate researcher at UCSF studying signal transduction pathways in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Jenn's research currently centers around the hypothesis that different mouse models may each resemble a different subtype of scleroderma disease. She has extensively characterized the gene expression signatures in murine cGVHD skin and found that gene expression bears a remarkable similarity to that found in the 'Inflammatory' subset of scleroderma patients. She is currently analyzing the TSK1 & TSK2 models and the bleomycin-induced fibrosis models to examine their similarities to human SSc in the context of the intrinsic subsets. She has also defined in vitro mechanistic signatures for profibrotic cytokines TGF, IL13 and IL4 in dermal fibroblasts and has identified differential expression of these signaling pathways in the intrinsic subsets found in scleroderma skin. Outside of lab Jenn is an avid foodie, road biker, climber and crossfitter, and in addition to being a graduate student is also a dedicated crazy cat lady.