Mark Siegal
Professor
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs
mark.siegal@nyu.edu

For more information about me, see my page and the lab research page.

Cassandra Buzby
Ph.D. student
cassandra.buzby@nyu.edu

I am interested in understanding how genetic interactions affect trait variation in natural populations. Due to the large number of variants in the genome and resulting statistical limitation of multiple hypothesis testing, there is very little power to detect how much interactions between genetic loci contribute to a trait. My research aims to characterize these gene-by-gene interactions by holding fixed a single chromosome in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Effects dependent on the identity of this fixed genetic background are thus interacting with loci on that chromosome. This model thus converts interaction effects to additive effects, reducing the statistical pitfalls of current estimates of epistasis.

Eugene Plavskin
Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor
eugene.plavskin@nyu.edu

I am interested in how evolution rewires complex gene regulatory networks. My work focuses mainly on understanding how mutation space constrains this evolutionary process. To this end, I am exploring the fitness effects of de novo mutations in yeast using a combination of high-throughput microscopy and modeling.

Federica Sartori
Ph.D. student
federica.sartori@nyu.edu

I am interested in how genotypes translate into phenotypes. For my Ph.D. thesis I am studying how natural variation in a gene within a network alters the phenotypic outcome of other genes it interacts with. I am also interested in how genetically homogenous populations generate phenotypic diversity among individuals, which allows some members of the population to survive stresses.