DEANNA PORRAS

Deanna earned her BSc. in Kinesiology & Health Science followed by her MSc. from York University in 2012 and 2015 respectively. After receiving her MSc. she worked as a research technician for both Zucara Therapeutics and Stem Cell Research Group. During her time at Zucara, she worked with a novel compound with the therapeutic potential to prevent hypoglycemia in people with diabetes who are insulin-dependent.  As a member of the Stem cell research group she looked at the effects of the retinoblastoma protein family on myogenic stem cell and adipogenic stem cell lineage determination.

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Deanna’s project will focus on advancing our understanding of the molecular networks driving stepwise hematopoietic programming and the altered transcriptional programs underlying leukemic differentiation blockade. Using a novel library of a heterogeneous subset of human AML patient cells reprogrammed into induced pluripotent stem cells (AML-iPSCs) recently developed in our lab, her PhD dissertation aims to determine links between differentiation and epigenetic memory, and identify key genetic mutations responsible for disease pathogenesis.

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In addition to running the PhD marathon, Deanna has run two actual marathons and is training for her first ultra marathon (50km) next year!