Catherine Douds
About Me
I obtained my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Juniata college in 2016. Before coming to Penn State, I worked for Bringham and Women’s hospital in a squamous cell carcinoma lab as a research technician. In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my dog and crafting up a storm.
Research Interest
My research interests lie at the interface of computational and experimental biology. Specifically, I am working in Dr. Phil Bevilacqua’s lab development and expand methodology to improve in vivo transcriptome-wide RNA structure prediction.
Research Summary
Structure-seq2 is a methodology developed by the Bevilacqua and Assman labs to probe in vivo RNA structure. With this method, live cells are treated with a chemical reagent that specifically reacts with single-stranded nucleobases to add a covalent modification that can be detected upon reverse transcription. Deep sequencing of this cDNA will report with single-nucleotide resolution sites of modification to infer in vivo structure. However, structure predictions using these data still have limited accuracy. To improve this accuracy, I am expanding the chemical toolbox used to probe RNA in a single experiment as well as expanding the computational analysis to make better use of the information this chemical suite provides.
Programs and Training Centers
Honors and Awards
- Eukaryotic Gene Regulation Training Grant
Pennsylvania State University | August 2018 to August 2019
- Pela Fay Braucher Scholarship
Pennsylvania State University | 2017-2018
- Distinguished Graduate Fellowship
Pennsylvania State University | 2017-2018
- Homer F Braddock Scholarship in Biology
Pennsylvania State University | 2017
- James Quinter Scholarship
Juniata College | 2012-2016
- The Rockwell Chemistry Prize
Juniata College | 2016
- The Dr. Homer C. and Ethel F. Will Endowed Scholarship Fund in Biology
Juniata College | 2015
- Gamma Sigma Epsilon: Chemistry honor society
Juniata College | 2015
- Beta Beta Beta: Biology honor society
Juniata College | 2015