.jpg "Chan Hee Mok photo")
University of California, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
I earned a PhD in Equine Orthopedics in 2020 from the Department of Veterinary Science at the University of Kentucky—located in the Horse Capital of the World—Lexington, Kentucky. I investigated the comparative cell biology between interzone and analgen skeletal fetal equine cell lines, which undergo distinct articular and hypertrophic chondrogenic pathways in close proximity. I utilized high throughput gene expression analytic technologies that include bulk RNA-seq and single cell RNA-seq, along with diverse bioinformatics tools, to evaluate the hypertrophic and chondrogenic divergence. Throughout my PhD program I became appreciative of how fast technology develops and advances in the biology field, and I wanted to expand my knowledge and skill sets in developmental biology and bioinformatics. I sought for a postdoc opportunity in the Marcucio Laboratory at University of California, San Francisco in 2021. I am studying craniofacial development at earlier embryonic stages with various systems and tools: a transgenic mouse model, a chick model, a CRISPR, high throughput sequencing technique, and more. I have been involved in two R01 projects in which we study different molecular regulators such as SHH, PBXs, FGFs, and NOSIP during the embryonic face and brain formation in order to better understand the morphogenesis and the etiologies of craniofacial congenital defects. In the poster that I am presenting at this meeting we investigated complementary roles of PBX genes regulating SHH signaling in the chick frontonasal ectodermal zone (FEZ). We demonstrated that spatial expression of SHH is enhanced by PBX1 and downregulated by PBX3 in the chicken FEZ. We also profiled the epigenomic landscape during the craniofacial development in chick embryos using high throughput sequencing and identified a regulatory sequence with the SHH locus that is interacting with PBX1.
