Bio:

Jada (she/her) joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science in July 2022 as a Research Associate in the Molecular Genetics Department. As part of the Viral Genetic Tools team, she develops and screens enhancer-driven AAVs to achieve cell-type-selective targeting in the mouse brain. Her work also includes engineering an improved monosynaptic rabies tracing system, computational analysis of genomics datasets, and investigating sequence syntax rules that underly cell-type specificity of enhancer elements.

Prior to joining the Institute, Jada earned a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Tulane University. In Nich Sandoval’s lab, she focused on promoter engineering, optimizing the human cytomegalovirus promoter to improve the stability and yield of recombinant protein expression in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells.