Justin Kinney

Dr. Kinney completed his BA in Physics and Math at Cornell University in 2002. He then pursued his PhD work in Physics at Princeton University, where he pursued research in string theory (with Juan Maldacena) and biophysics (with Curtis Callan and Edward Cox), graduating in 2008. In 2010 Dr. Kinney became a Fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and has worked there ever since.

Research in the Kinney Lab develops next-generation DNA sequencing as a tool for dissecting the biophysical mechanisms of gene regulation. As a graduate student, Kinney co-invented a widely used technique now known as the massively parallel reporter assay (MPRA). Kinney and colleagues further showed how, using ideas from information theory, MPRA data could be used to infer quantitative biophysical models of gene expression. The Kinney lab continues to leverage a tightly knit combination of mathematical theory, machine learning, and experiments in order to illuminate the mechanisms of gene regulation in two diverse contexts: bacterial transcriptional regulation and alternative mRNA splicing in humans. This latter context is highly relevant to understanding and treating human diseases like Spinal Muscular Atrophy. The Kinney lab also develops algorithms and software for the analysis of MPRAs and other multiplex assays of variant effect (MAVEs).