Julia Hisey

The Mirkin lab uses a yeast model system to study repeat expansion diseases and events that occur at these repeats. My work involves finishing a project focused on the GAA trinucleotide repeat, which is implicated in Friedrich’s ataxia (FRDA). While most research on the expansion of GAA repeats has been done in dividing cell populations, this project studies events that occur in non-dividing, or quiescent, cells. This is especially important in FRDA since the main tissues affected in the disease are composed of generally non-dividing cells and mutations may occur differently at the repeats in dividing versus non-dividing cells.