CSB Thesis Defense

Date: Friday, October 10, 2025 Time: 3:00 – 4:00 PM Room: McGovern Auditorium, Whitehead Institute CSB Ph.D. Candidate: Diep H. Nguyen Supervisor: Pulin Li (Biology) TDC Members:  Professors Sebastian Lourido (MIT Biology), Harikesh Wong ( MIT Biology), and Ramnik Xavier (Broad Institute/ Massachusetts General Hospital-External Member) Title:  Design Principles of Innate Immune Sensing  Abstract: Life is a study in contrasts…

Date: Friday, May 2,2025 Time: 2:00 – 3:00 PM Room: Singleton Auditorium (46-3002) CSB Ph.D. Candidate: Alex LeNail Supervisor: Myriam Heiman (BCS, Picower) TDC Members:  Jonathan Weissman Manolis Kellis Hongkui Zeng Title:  Transcriptional Reprogramming to Reverse Aging-Associated Transcriptional Dysregulation in Neurons Abstract: It is unclear what the mechanistic contribution of normal aging  is to the neurodegenerative diseases that present in advanced age.…

Date: Wednesday, April 30th, 2025 Time: 1-2pm  Room: Ragon Auditorium CSB Ph.D. Candidate: Ivy Liu Advisor: Alex Shalek (Chemistry, IMES/Broad/Ragon) TDC Members: Forest White (chair), Ernest Fraenkel, Srivatsan Raghavan (external) Title: Decoding Disease Drivers Through Single-Cell Omics and Scalable Phenotypic Screens Abstract: High-throughput phenotypic screens using biochemical perturbations and high-content readouts are constrained by limitations of scale. In…

Date: Friday, May 9, 2025 Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM Room: Building 9‑354, MIT CSB Ph.D. Candidate: Ifrah Tariq Supervisor: Ernest Fraenkel (BE) TDC Members: Caroline Uhler (chair), Nir Hacohen, Manolis Kellis Title:  Biologically Interpretable Representation Learning for Mechanistic Insights into Cancer Immunotherapy Resistance Abstract: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized cancer treatment, yet therapeutic resistance remains a formidable challenge across diverse…

Date: Friday, April 18, 2025 Time: 12:00 -1:00 PM Room: Yellowstone room in Broad Institute CSB Ph.D. Candidate: Jide Ezike Supervisor: Gad Getz TDC Members: Jonathan Weissman (chair) Aviv Regev Caroline Uhler Mario Suva Title: Applications of Native and Engineered Genetic Barcodes in Single-Cell RNA-Seq to Study Clonal Evolution and Cellular Phenotypic Diversity Abstract: Cells are constantly altering their states, whether due to…

Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2025 Time: 1:00 -2:00 PM Room: E15-359 CSB Ph.D. Candidate: Vikram Sundar Supervisor: Kevin M. Esvelt (Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, NEC Career Development Professor of Computer and Communications, Media Lab) TDC Members: Amy Keating, Jeff Gore, Sergey Ovchinnikov, Debora Marks (external) Title: Engineering TEV Protease Specificity: An Exploration of Machine Learning and High-Throughput Experimentation for Protein…

Date: Thursday, April 10, 2025 Time: 2:00 -3:00 PM Location: Whitehead Auditorium CSB Ph.D. Candidate: Christopher Rodriguez Advisor: Peter Reddien TDC Members: TDC Members: David Page, David Bartel, Vadim Gladyshev (external) Title: The Limits of Longevity Abstract: Do all animals age? Although aging seems to be a widespread phenomenon, some demographic studies have failed to find evidence of aging in certain…

Date: Friday, April 25th, 2025 Time: 10-11 am Room: 68-181 CSB PhD Candidate: Kamal Maher Advisor: Xiao Wang (Chemistry, Broad) TDC Members: Peter Reddien (chair) Alex Shalek, Fabian Theis (external) Title: Fundamental representations of regions and interactions in spatial transcriptomics Abstract: While cells are often considered the fundamental unit of biology, it is their spatial…