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Chakraborty_Chou_Linhoff_MenonFour new Assistant Professors have recently been appointed in the Department of Genetics.

Dr. Prabuddha Chakraborty earned a BSc in Zoology in 2005 followed by a MSc in Zoology/Genetics and Molecular Biology in 2007, both from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India.  He earned his PhD in Physiology/Reproductive Physiology from University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha NE in 2015.  Dr. Chakraborty has been a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Magnuson in the Department of Genetics at UNC Chapel Hill since 2016.  The long-term goal of his current work is to gain a better understanding of how chromatin remodelers modulate the chromatin state in developing germ cells and thereby control interaction of chromatin with other factors and regulate transcription.

Dr. Wei-Chun (Emily) Chou earned a B.S. in Medical Technology from National Taiwan University in 1999 followed by a M.S. from the Graduate Institute of Medical Technology, National Taiwan University in 2001.  Dr. Chou earned her Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of Immunology at National Taiwan University in 2008.  Dr. Chou then served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Pediatrics (2008) and the Department of Clinical Medicine (2009-2010) at National Taiwan University.  Dr. Chou joined the laboratory of Dr. Jenny Ting (Distinguished Professor, Department of Genetics) at UNC Chapel Hill as a postdoctoral fellow in 2011 and was appointed as Research Associate in 2015.  Dr. Chou focuses on studying the role of the nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) family member NLRX1 and its involvement in the immune response using experimental models.

Dr. Michael Linhoff earned a B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1992.  He earned a PhD in Neurosciences from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008.  Dr. Linhoff served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Vollum Institute, Oregon Health and Science University (2008-2014) followed by an appointment as a Research Assistant Scientist (2014-2018) and a Research Assistant Professor (2018-2020) at the same institution.  Dr. Linhoff joined the laboratory of Dr. Jenny Ting at UNC Chapel Hill as a Research Associate in 2020.  Dr. Linhoff’s current research objectives are focused on investigating the role of NLR protein function in the nervous system in order to determine how these proteins contribute to pathogen-driven and neurodegenerative disease processes.

Dr. Debashish Menon earned a BS in Microbiology from University of Mumbai, India in 2002 followed by a MS in Microbiology from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India in 2004.  He earned his PhD in Biological Sciences from Wayne State University in 2013.  Dr. Menon has been a Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Magnuson in the Department of Genetics at UNC Chapel Hill since 2013.  Dr. Menon has been focused on a novel role for the mammalian PBAF (Polybromo – Brg1 Associated Factor) complex, a member of the SWI/SNF family of chromatin remodelers, in the regulation of meiotic cell division during spermatogenesis.