Catherine Redmond

I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland down the street from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). My senior year of high school I rode my bike after school to the NIH for my Walter Johnson High School executive internship in the lab of Dr. Mirit Aladjem at the National Cancer Institute, where I studied DNA replication initiation in mammalian cells. I returned as a summer intern to Dr. Aladjem’s lab throughout my undergraduate education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). In May 2016, I earned a bachelor of science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the UMBC, with magna cum laude, induction into Phi Beta Kappa, and Honors College certification. From June 2016 through July 2018 I was post-baccalaureate fellow in the lab of Dr. Alison McBride at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where I studied human papillomavirus DNA replication and integration using confocal microscopy. In May 2019, I joined Dr. Pierre Coulombe’s lab in the department of Cell and Developmental Biology where I use a diverse toolset of molecular biology, biochemistry, and confocal microscopy techniques to study the role of keratin intermediate filaments in tumor suppressive pathways. Outside of lab I like to illustrate animals, garden, and hike.

Keratin intermediate filaments are a large paralogous gene family whose expression are tightly regulated by the differentiation program of complex epithelia. Using keratin mutant mouse models, primary and immortalized tissue culture, and a breadth of molecular biology, biochemistry, and confocal microscopy techniques, I study the role of keratin intermediate filaments in tumor suppressive pathways in the keratinocytes of complex epithelia.

Fluorescent confocal microscopy, protein extraction and Western blotting, molecular cloning, primary and immortalized tissue culture, transcription factor reporter assays, keratin mutant mouse models