The ASPIRE Path in Molecular Medicine

Jenny Tran is a first-year graduate student in the department of Biochemistry. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, she received her B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Georgia(UGA) in 2018. Her previous research includes peptide self-assembly at Emory University and NMR sparse labeling techniques at UGA. Upon graduating, she worked in agricultural formulation chemistry for two years before starting her graduate studies at Vanderbilt University under the Quantitative and Chemical Biology (QCB) program. She is now in the lab of Dr. Breann Brown and currently studying the structure and function of ALAS1, a housekeeping enzyme responsible for the first step in heme biosynthesis. Her career goals are to better integrate basic science research into the field of cosmetics to discover novel ways to combat chronic skin disorders, such as eczema and psoriasis.