Jason Gardiner: Plant Physiology First Author

Jason Gardiner, first author of “CRISPR-CAS mediated transcriptional control and epi-mutagenesis”

Current Position: Postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Steven E. Jacobsen’s Laboratory at the University of California Los Angeles
Education: Ph.D. specializing in Plant Biology, University of Alberta, Canada; B.Sc. specializing in Plant Biology, University of Alberta, Canada

Non-scientific Interests: Running, weight lifting, guitar, 3D design, and additive manufacturing.

Brief bio: I have been interested in the transcriptional regulation of gene expression throughout my academic career. I fed this curiosity in my undergrad and then into my graduate degree in Enrico Scarpella’s laboratory at the University of Alberta, characterizing developmentally significant gene expression patterns and the upstream mechanisms controlling them. To investigate the role DNA methylation plays in transcriptional regulation in plants, as a postdoctoral fellow in Steven Jacobsen’s laboratory, I developed new technologies that enable the manipulation of DNA methylation at targeted loci. In the next stage of my career, I plan to draw on these experiences to pursue one of the leading goals of synthetic biology: the creation of predictable, reproducible, and modular transcriptional control units capable of coordinating the expression of multiple genes.