Carl joined the Wray lab in Spring of 2021. Carl’s interests span technology development, functional genomics, and the response of marine organisms to the challenges of a rapidly changing climate.
In technology development, Carl is interested in developing tools for transgenesis of non-model organisms (particularly viral vector development), in developing genetic tools – such as novel expression cassettes – for controlled perturbation of gene expression, and in enabling high-throughput forward genetic screening in non-model organisms.
In functional genomics, Carl is interested in advancing forward genetic screening methodologies beyond mammalian taxa and in the integration of population genetic data and perturbation-based forward genetic screening to better understand genome-to-phenome relationships.
In organismal response to climate change, Carl’s interests are in leveraging the power of functional genomics and population genetics for the discovery of genetic and genomic predictors of response to warming, acidifying seas, particularly in marine invertebrates. They dream of causally linking genetic variation at individual and community levels to broader population changes and species migration, invasion, and extirpation. They are under no illusions that any of this is realistic in scope or scale, but are too stubborn not to pursue those ideas, which they find quite fun to think about.
They earned their Masters in Biology at UNC Greensboro studying non-canonical WNT signaling under Dr. Karen Katula. Thereafter, they began work for an early-career physician scientist (Keri Lunsford) in a transplantation immunology lab at Houston Methodist Research Institute, where they studied factors predictive for Orthotopic Liver Transplantation (OLT) futility (defined as a survival benefit for the recipient of less than 1 year), and factors predictive for operational tolerance in OLT (a phenomena, occurring in around 10-20% of recipients, in which immunosuppression is extraneous for allograft maintenance). They then joined the lab of Terry Magnuson at UNC, where they worked with Jesse Raab studying the SWI/SNF complex and its role in Heptatocellular Carcinoma (HCC). The SWI/SNF complex is a protein complex that facilitates chromatin remodeling by catalyzing nucleosome sliding, and is composed of multiple sub-units, some of which are required, and some of which are dispensable or mutually exclusive. The how and why of variable complex assembly was a focus of Jesse’s work in Terry’s lab. When Jesse transitioned from Terry’s lab to a tenure track role at within the same department at UNC, Carl moved to Jesse’s lab (one bench over).
