Meet Maira Almeida of Iowa State University. A PhD candidate co-mentored in the labs of Dr. Maura McGrail and Dr. Jeffrey Essner, Maira just finished participating in Genome Engineering: Frontiers of CRISPR/Cas. The Brazilian national’s first meeting at CSHL included a poster presentation on “Short homology based CRISPR/Cas9 targeted integration for Cre/lox conditional gene inactivation tools in zebrafish”. The opportunity to explain her research to her peers and receive their feedback “went really well.” And those who approached her poster were “really surprised with the method…recently developed in [their] lab called GeneWeld. This method allows efficient CRISPR/Cas9-mediated integration directed by short homology.”

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am particularly interested in developing and applying genome engineering methods to understanding the molecular mechanisms behind developmental processes and diseases. I investigate how chromatin regulators control stemness and neural gene networks during neural development, and how their misregulation can lead to cell transformation and brain tumorigenesis.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your work?
Since high school, I knew I wanted to work with genetics focused on the cancer field. During my undergraduate studies and Masters, I worked on animal genetics and human genetics centered on numerical cognition, respectively. When I started my PhD, I finally got to work on what I’ve always been interested in: developmental genetics applied to the understanding of tumorigenesis. In the past 4 years I was introduced to the genome editing field, specifically CRISPR technology, and I quickly fell in love with it. Now, I have the opportunity to join both of these areas that I am passionate about, which makes me really excited about my research projects.

How did your scientific journey begin?
I have been interested in science since I was a child. In my first year of high school, I had a wonderful biology teacher, Prof. Paulo Flávio (better known by his nickname Paulinho), who introduced me to genetics and it was love at first sight. I remember my teacher talking about gene function and drawing pedigrees for genetic disorders and schemes depicting the different cell division steps. I was fascinated about everything. At that point, I already knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in genetic disorders. My goal has always been to use my work to help others. Someday in the future, I hope to be able to apply all this genetics knowledge  I am acquiring to develop efficient therapies for patients in need.

Was there something specific about the Genome Engineering: Frontiers of CRISPR/Cas Meeting that drew you to attend?
The opportunity to learn about the latest in genome engineering and to share how I’ve applied CRISPR/Cas to create tools for recombinase genetics in zebrafish. Moreover, to meet leaders in the field including Dr. Fyodor Urnov, Dr. Jennifer Doudna, and Dr. Jonathan Weissman and learn about their exciting advances in CRISPR research.

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
My key takeaway from this meeting is that the genome engineering field is rapidly evolving and its potential to revolutionize the medical field in the next few years is enormous. Currently, there are so many CRISPR systems already available or being described, and they represent a breakthrough in the understanding of molecular mechanisms behind genetic disorders and in the development of efficient therapies for diseases such as cancer.

What and/or how will you apply what you’ve learned from the meeting to your work?
On the second day of the meeting, Dr. David Liu gave an incredible talk where he described a technique called Prime Editing for introducing precise genome modifications. I was astonished by his results and I really would like to try this new technique in our model system, the zebrafish.

If someone curious in attending this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would greatly recommend this meeting to anyone interested in genome engineering. The Genome Engineering: Frontiers of CRISPR/Cas meeting is a wonderful opportunity, especially for young scientists like me, to learn from the leaders in the field and establish connections with other researchers that are developing similar work.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I really enjoyed walking around the campus and the friends that I made. I met wonderful people from many different countries.

Thank you to Maira for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.