Welcome to the Garcia Lab
“Spectrometry for the Masses”
The Garcia Lab utilizes high-resolution mass spectrometry to explore cellular signaling, epigenetic mechanisms and chromatin regulation. We are especially interested in understanding how protein and nucleic acid modifications mediate their canonical functions and regulate nuclear processes. Mass spectrometry has become an unparalleled tool in the analysis of these biological molecules and allows us to obtain quantitative information about modifications as well as their co-occurrence. These modifications are critical for nuclear stability and transcription; and dysregulation of these pathways underlie several human diseases such as cancer. Our work aims to reveal the roles of these modifications in the cell cycle, proliferation, differentiation, signaling pathways and metabolism, to consequently help elucidate the mechanisms of various diseases. The Garcia Lab is part of the Epigenetics Institute and Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics here at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
May 2019
Yekaterina receives a travel award from the Delaware Valley MS Discussion Group to attend the upcoming ASMS conference where she will be presenting a poster, congrats!
Collaborations with the Lewis lab (Univ. of Wisconsin) on an ‘oncohistone-mimic’, and Stephen Mack (Baylor College of Medicine) on K27M oncohistone mechanisms in gliomas are published in Nature Communication and Cancer Cell, respectively.
Yekaterina has been selected as a finalist for the Blavatnik Family Graduate Fellowship.
April 2019
Khadija and Hee Jong have passed their 2nd year prelim examinations, congrats!
Peder and Yekaterina’s methods article on protein acetylation is published in Methods in Molecular Biology, and a collaboration with the Blobel lab (CHOP) on the role of histone acetylation during mitotic transcription is published in Cell Reports.
Khadija is awarded an NSF Graduate Fellowship, and Hee Jong is named Honorable Mention for the NSF Graduate Fellowship, congratulations to both!
Abby wins the Garcia Lab 9th Floor Ballers NCAA Bracket Tournament Challenge, correctly being the only one to select UVa as the Champion. Ben and Peder finished a respectable 2nd and 3rd. “Auburn Joe” is born, and Amber, please stick to surface proteins
The Garcia lab welcomes visiting graduate student Hilde von Gruning (University of Pretoria) to the group for a short research collaboration stay.