Rachael Baliira

Rachael obtained her Bachelor of Science in Life Science from Pennsylvania State University. For her honors thesis project, she studied drivers of carcinogenic microsatellite mutation. She then enrolled into Michigan’s NIH sponsored Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP); working with Dr. David Lombard and Dr. Adam Stein to investigate the role of SIRT5 during heart failure. For her graduate studies she seeks to study the crosstalk between epithelial lung cells expressing oncogenic KRAS and the surrounding TME in NSCLC. Outside of lab I enjoy walks, karaoke, and sci-fi.

Oncogenic KRAS in both lung and pancreatic cancers, tumor metastasis, treatment resistance, intrinsic and extrinsic cell signaling.

Fluorescence microscopy, gene editing, flow cytometry, Seahorse XFe96, cell culture, GEMMS, primary (human/mouse) cell isolation, cell culture, protein and RNA biochemical analysis

2017 J&J Merritt Outstanding Thesis Award, Pennsylvania State University
2018 Rackham Merit Fellow, University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School
2018 NSF GRFP

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35851833/