864-889-0519 chg@clemson.edu

Graduate Student

Email: ehbisho@g.clemson.edu

Biosketch

Rebecca Bishop

Rebecca Bishop

I began my academic career at Greenville Technical College in 2013 as a Greenville Native. My primary interest at the time was in pursuing stem cell research with a neurological focus. In 2016 I took my first intro Genetics class and decided to attend Clemson as a Genetics major. In 2017 I graduated from Greenville Technical College with Honors and as a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. During my time at Greenville Technical College, I participated in mitochondrial DNA haplotyping research with Dr. Sriyani Rajapakse which I presented with a fellow student at the 2016 Greenville Technical College Scholar Showcase.

I began attending Clemson for my bachelor’s in science with a major in Genetics and a minor in Chemistry in 2018. At the end of the Spring 2018 semester, I began working in Dr. Rajandeep Sekhon’s lab, focused at the time on the senescence of Zea mays through sugar source-sink partitioning. I assisted in sugar extractions and quantification from several hundred tissue samples from select genotypes taken at specific life stages. I also assisted DNA and RNA extractions, cDNA conversions, PCR standardizations, protocol optimization, and many other wet-lab procedures during my time in Dr. Rajandeep Sekhon’s lab. The culmination of all my research efforts resulted in two research publications, one co-authored and one lead-authored, and one conference visit consisting of a poster presentation. The lead-authored publication was an In Silico study performed on the AT-Hook gene family, which had been established as a target gene in GWAS analysis.

I graduated from Clemson in December of 2020 and have spent the remainder of my time as a Lab Technician in Dr. Rajandeep Sekhon’s lab assisting in the progression of an ongoing study focused on a modeling analysis of stalk strength across a large inbred panel. I will be entering Dr. Anholt’s lab in the Fall of 2021 at the Center for Human Genetics as a graduate student.

Research

My graduate research interest will be focused on the genetics that is associated with the neural architecture of addiction. The precise methodology and research interests have yet to be fully determined.

Publications

Kumar R, Bishop E, Bridges W, Tharayil N, & Sekhon R. 2019. Sugar partitioning and source-sink interaction are key determinants of leaf senescence in maize. Plant, Cell & Environment: https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.13599

Bishop E, Kumar R, Luo F, Saski C, & Sekhon R. 2019. Genome-wide identification, expression profiling, and network analysis of at-hook gene family in maize. Genomics: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2019.07.009