Jared Baisden, under the direction of Dr. Qi Zhang, successfully defended his dissertation on April 9, 2020 and received his PhD.
The title of his dissertation is “Probing Excited Conformational States Involved in microRNA Biogenesis”
Jared received a B.S. in Biochemistry and Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. His first research experience, on fatty acid metabolism in freshwater food chains, was under the guidance of Dr. Jeffrey Weidenhamer and Dr. Patricia Saunders. He went on to study natural products of Acer Rubrum L. while at Ashland, also under Dr. Jeffrey Weidenhamer. He interned for a summer in the metabolism department of a WIL Reseach LLC, where he studied pharmacokinetics using isotopically labeled pre-clinical drugs. The summer before attending UNC Chapel Hill, he completed an ORIP summer internship at a branch of the Ohio State University, where he studied cryo-malleability of domestic rubber products.
Jared Baisden joined the Biochemistry and Biophysics department in 2014. He served as a co-senator for our department in the Graduate and Professional Student Federation (GPSF) during the graduate student separation referendum, in addition to being a student event planner for the department. He was also a BCBP retreat committee organizer, an NSF GRFP honorable mention, and an IMSD diversity in excellence fellow. Jared is planning to continue working in the field of RNA research but expand to chemical biology and drug discovery in RNA systems.
Good luck Jared on your upcoming adventures.