Kathie Sun

Kathie Sun

Computational biologist

Hi there

I’m a computational biologist interested in identifying and characterizing disease-relevant genetic variation in humans and model organisms. I recently completed my PhD in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). My PhD work was in statistical genetics, and I built Bayesian hierarchical models to understand the relationship between genetics, environmental factors, and complex traits in diverse mouse populations. Previously, I worked on estimating gene expression signatures associated with urine and blood biomarker levels in occupationally-exposed automobile spray painters.

This space serves as a launchpad for my CV as well as a scratchpad to document some side projects, my attempts to learn statistics & quantitative genetics, and notes on a few things I’ve learned along the way.

News

  • [4/16/2021] Officially got my PhD degree conferred yesterday!
    • School’s out for summer, school’s out forever (for real this time)
    • And I finished my first week as an Associate Scientist at the Regeneron Genetics Center
  • [3/24/2021] I’ve successfully defended my PhD dissertation today
    • Thesis title: “Statistical Modeling of Parent-of-origin Effects and Allelic Imbalance in Genetically-diverse, Reciprocal Mouse Crosses”
    • Thanks to my committee, advisor, labmates, and fellow graduate student friends for the helpful advice and lessons along this journey!
    • Further thanks to all of my friends and family for the support over the last few years <3
  • [2/19/2021] My first first-author manuscript has been accepted to Genetics
    • Title: “Bayesian modeling of skewed X inactivation in genetically diverse mice identifies a novel Xce allele associated with copy number changes”
    • We find a novel functional allele that affects X chromosome inactivation skewing in mice
    • This new allele is the weakest in a known allelic series and is found in a specific mouse strain, NOD/ShiLtJ
    • We find evidence that the weakness of this allele may be related to copy number variation in the region