John Urban
School: Brown University
Degree: Ph.D., Genomics Track, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology & Biochemistry graduate program
Expected defense/completion date: December 2016
Advisor: Susan Gerbi
Research: Developing methods to map DNA replication origins in multicellular organisms using Illumina and Oxford Nanopore sequencing. Developing protocols for nanopore sequencing of ultra-long DNA molecules. Assembling high quality non-model organism genomes using long reads from Oxford Nanopore and PacBio, long-range scaffolding information from BioNano Genomics and NabSys, and high quality sequences for polishing from Illumina. Mapping genomic regions in Sciara coprophila that undergo developmental DNA amplification with high throughput sequencing. EPSCoR has funded me during these projects and has also given me access to the demanding computational resources necessary to carry them out.