Giovanna Weykopf
Thesis title: Prioritization and Functional Analysis of Covid-19 Host Genetic Risk Variants
MRC HGU PhD Programme
Year of study: 3
- MRC Human Genetics Unit
- The Institute of Genetics and Cancer
- College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Contact details
- Email: giovanna.weykopf@ed.ac.uk
PhD supervisors:
Address
- Street
-
MRC Human Genetics Unit,
Institute of Genetics and Cancer
at the University of Edinburgh
Western General Hospital - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH4 2XU
Qualifications
BSc Biological Sciences (Molecular Genetics), The University of Edinburgh
Undergraduate teaching
Demonstrator for the School of Biological Sciences across 1st-3rd year courses
Research summary
My interest is in understanding how human genetic variation in the non-coding genome can contribute to disease outcome. In particular, I am interested in genetic variants which impact regulatory elements and thereby modulate expression of their target gene. My PhD focuses on functional follow-up of host genetic associations with severe COVID-19. To this end, I am taking a a two-fold approach:
1) I employ STARR-sequencing, a type of massively parallel reporter assay, to prioritise risk variants for further study in a relevant cell type context.
2) I investigates underlying mechanisms at a single locus using targeted approaches such as CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing.
I am jointly supervised by Dr Simon Biddie, Prof Wendy Bickmore and Prof Kenneth Baillie and based at the MRC Human Genetics Unit and the Institute of Genetics and Cancer.