Melissa Englund, Ph.D.

PhD student from July 2017 to March 2023
Postdoc from May 2023 to
Human Genetics PhD

Research areas

  • Non-coding Genome
  • Human Genetics
  • Gene Regulation
  • Silencers, Enhancer-blockers and Insulators
  • Massively-parallel Reporter Assays
  • CRISPR/Cas9 Genomic Targeting
  • PRDM1

Education

  • B.A. Molecular and Cell Biology: University of California, Berkeley

Honors and Awards

  • Michigan Predoctoral Training in Genetics (GTP T32)
  • Anita and Howard Cramer Scholarship Award for Academic Achievement
  • Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant (candidate)

Background

Melissa’s PhD research focuses on understanding the regulatory capacity of the human non-coding genome. Her work involves both development of novel plasmid-based tools for assaying negative regulatory element activity and the leveraging of these tools to characterize regulatory elements in the 300kb non-coding genomic region surrounding the gene PRDM1.

Boyle lab papers

  1. Nishizaki SS, McDonald TL, Farnum GA, Holmes MJ, Drexel ML, Switzenberg JA, Boyle AP. 2021. The inducible lac operator-repressor system is functional in zebrafish cells. Frontiers in Genetics. 12: 994. DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2021.683394.