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Geena Ildefonso


Department: Chemical & Physical Biology

Faculty Mentor: Carlos Lopez, Ph.D.

Dissertation DescriptionTheoretical and Experimental Approaches to Cell Decision Making

My research focuses on understanding how cells are choosing to commit to a specific fate of cellular death or survival. I am particularly interested in understanding the crosstalk in the Nuclear Factor-kappaB and Necroptosis signaling pathways and how different protein-protein interactions are driving cellular commitment to a given fate. I utilize a combined approach with theoretical and experimental methods. Integrating mathematical modeling, Bayesian methods, and machine learning tools along with mass spectrometry and live-cell imagining, I am to mechanistically understand how cells are making decisions.