Christina Markunas, a graduate student in the Division of Medical Genetics and the Duke University Program in Genetics and Genomics, will present a talk entitled Genetic Dissection of Chiari Type 1 Malformation at the Chiari and Syringomyelia Foundation 2012 “Think Tank” meeting in Miami, Florida, on April 14.
[toggle title_open="Close Me" title_closed="Christina Markunas bio" hide="yes" border="yes" style="default" excerpt_length="0" read_more_text="Read More" read_less_text="Read Less" include_excerpt_html="no"]Christina Markunas received a BS in Biological Sciences and a minor in Genetics from North Carolina State University in 2006. While an undergraduate, she was a student intern at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Following graduation, she began a human genetics postbaccalaureate IRTA research fellowship at the NIEHS for a little over a year prior to entering the University Program in Genetics and Genomics at Duke University. Currently, Christina is a third year PhD student conducting research at the Duke Center for Human Genetics under the mentorship of Drs. Allison Ashley-Koch and Simon Gregory. Her training has been focused in both genetic epidemiology and molecular genetics. For her doctoral dissertation, she will focus on dissection of the genetic basis of Chiari Type I Malformation (CMI). Christina and colleagues will perform a genome-wide linkage screen using CMI families to identify regions of the genome likely to harbor CMI susceptibility genes. In addition, she will use genomic and statistical approaches in order to gain a better understanding of the clinical, radiological, and genetic factors that contribute to variation in disease presentation.[/toggle]