Jason Matos

Jason is currently a postdoc at Jing-Ke Weng's lab at MIT's Whitehead Institute. He employs approaches in metabolomics, proteomics, and genomics to elucidate the biosynthetic pathway of the small molecule, resiniferatoxin (RTX), a well-studied TRPV1 channel agonist. RTX is found in the latex of a plant called Euphorbia resinifera and is being investigated in nearly a dozen clinical trials for chronic pain management. By sequencing the genome, he identified a gene for casbene synthase in Euphorbia resinifera, the first proposed step in RTX biosynthesis. Proteomics of different tissue sample, alongside metabolite extraction and analysis, helped identify in which plant tissues proposed enzymes and pathway intermediates are found. Taken together, this multi-omics approach allows for elucidation of the biosynthetic pathway of RTX.

Lindsey Lamarche

Lindsey is currently a Principal Scientist in the Biomedical Research division of Novartis, where she began working as a postdoctoral fellow. As part of a human genetics-focused target validation group, she works to identify and characterize naturally occurring mutations in humans that affect the activity of protein targets with the goal of establishing causal relationships between protein function and disease and estimating the potential efficacy of drugs against these proteins.