Kyle Palos - Ph.D. Candidate

B.S. Biology, University of California, Riverside, 2015.

I began my scientific career as an undergraduate in Dr. Patty Springer’s lab at the University of California, Riverside. There I learned about the genetic mechanisms of plant development, specifically leaf development and initiation. Research in the Springer lab piqued my interest in plant molecular biology. For this reason, I decided to join the Plant Sciences department at the University of Arizona.

I joined Dr. Beilstein’s lab in January of 2016. My work in the Beilstein lab is broadly focused on functionally characterizing long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the plant family Brassicaceae. Brassicaceae is a great plant family to research as it contains numerous important food crops such as Cabbage and Broccoli, as well as important model species like Arabidopsis thaliana. LncRNAs remain poorly characterized in the field of molecular biology, especially in comparison to those studied in mammalian species. Specifically, I am interested in understanding what molecular role lncRNAs play in mediating responses to stress, as well as further describing their general role in regulating gene expression. To address these research goals, we utilize a variety of sequencing approaches to explore how lncRNAs are expressed under various stress conditions, as well as their tissue specific expression patterns. Through these approaches, we also aim to answer questions about how highly conserved lncRNAs may be functioning across species, a property which is uncommon for these RNAs.

In my free time I mostly enjoy being outdoors. I love playing and watching baseball, as well as most other team sports. I also enjoy bicycling, swimming, reading, and playing board games.