Biotechnology at CCSF

Karena Chow

I graduated from Wallenberg High School here in San Francisco in 2015. I then went to UC, Santa Cruz where I got a bachelor’s degree in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology.

I graduated college at the start of the pandemic, and I was at home a lot. I had some friends taking classes and I decided that I might want to take some as well. At the same time, I was looking for job openings but many of the jobs I was interested in required cell culture experience, which I didn’t have. When I discovered CCSF had courses in cell culture, I enrolled. I later applied for a CIRM internship.

In my CIRM internship at the Gladstone Institutes, I am making neurons from iPSCs. I am also using CRISPR-Cas9 to edit the neurons. Some people in the lab found it was hard to make these CRISPR-Cas9 edits in neurons, so my project is to find drugs that allow us to increase the number of edits possible. Increased editing potential should facilitate research on new therapies in the future.

A positive thing about this internship is working in an actual lab that is not a class setting. I get to listen in on lab meetings, hear discussions about science, and even present my own data.

After this internship, I plan to look for a research associate position in the biotech industry. After working for a time, I want to apply to graduate school.

Karena Chow-Manipulating Editing Outcomes in Neurons-2022.pdf

CIRM Intern: Karena Chow

Stem Cell Internship Lab: Conklin Lab, Gladstone Institutes

Project Title: Manipulating Editing Outcomes in Neurons

Abstract: The CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique has revolutionized therapeutics and allowed for the treatment of genetic diseases by correcting single-gene mutations. However, there are many problems to solve before there are viable therapies. In preliminary data, it was shown that virus-like particles (VLPs) are an effective way to deliver Cas9 into neurons, with 90% transduction. However, when targeting genes, 80% of iPSCs are edited by CRISPR-Cas9 and only 20% of the neurons are edited. In the cell, Cas9 protein only breaks the DNA and with the cell's own DNA repair pathways, the chance that there is a successful repair is up to the cell. We are investigating if it is possible to increase the editing outcomes and knockouts by using small molecules/drugs that will selectively inhibit DNA repair pathways to achieve the editing result we require in neurons and iPSCs. If there is a drug that increases the amount of editing it will be powerful because it gives us a way to change the editing outcomes in the cell to get more of the edits that we want in patient neurons.

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Karena Chow

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