Isaac Garcia-Salinas
PhD Student
I graduated as a BSc. in Microbiology in 2018 from the Autonomous University of Queretaro, in Mexico. During my undergraduate years I experimented working with different bench lab topics that included the isolation and identification of microbial communities and the application of molecular cloning techniques for the generation of bioproducts of industrial relevance. During this time, I learnt that phenotypes of interest are dependent on many factors that go beyond the sole presence of single genes, and then became interested in the study of phenotypes at the genomic level. Then, I joined the Cancer Genomics and Bioinformatics laboratory from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. There, under the supervision of Dr. Daniela Robles Espinoza I applied in silico fine-mapping strategies to identify putative causal variants of superficial spreading melanoma. This enriching experience got me interested in clinical phenotypes and how these are affected by genome-wide common and rare genetic variants that are actionable in a cell-wise and context-dependent fashion. Hence, I joined the MPhil programme from the Sanger Institute. Here, under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Gaffney, I studied single-cell transcriptomics of induced pluripotent stem cells aiming to identify phenome-wide relevant genes through genome-wide association signals and partitioned heritability enrichment.
Currently, I continue to be part of the Sanger Institute, now in their 4-year PhD programme. I continue to be interested in dissecting the genetic components of complex phenotypes through the study of population-derived whole genome and exome sequencing. Under the supervision of Dr. Raheleh Rahabri and Dr. Hilary Martin, I will work on a blend of projects focused on understanding the origins and effects of somatic mutations occurring in the embryo and parental germ cells.