Debbie Thurtle-Schmidt
Assistant Professor of Biology
Education
- Postdoctoral University of California, San Francisco (Cellular Molecular Pharmacology)
- Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley (Molecular and Cell Biology)
- B.S. Santa Clara University (Biology)
Areas of Expertise
- Genomics
- Bioinformatics
Background
I am interested in integrating novel genomics data into teaching bioinformatics.
Every single cell in an organism has almost the exact same genomic information, yet cells in the body develop into vastly different cell identities. How does one cell become a liver cell and another cell become a skin cell? This terminal differentiation into distinct cell types is due to the turning on of some genes and the turning off of other genes鈥攁 phenomenon known as transcriptional regulation. I utilize both genomic and genetic approaches in the model organism C. elegans to investigate how the appropriate genes get turned on and off in the correct cell types.
Teaching
- BIO 309 Genomics
- BIO 343 Laboratory Methods in Genomics
- BIO 240 Biostatistics for Life Scientists
- BIO/CSC 209 Bioinformatics Programming
- BIO 113 Integrated Concepts in Biology I (and lab)