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Jordan St. Charles Pharmacy Graduate Student 381 CARL Building Box 3054 DUMC Durham, N.C. 27710 Phone: 919.684.5814 Fax: 919.684.2790 Email: jordan.st.charles@duke.edu

Research Interest: Chromosome segregation during meiosis of triploid yeast.

I graduated from University of Michigan in 2005 with a BS in
Biochemistry and came to Duke the same summer. I am currently a grad student in Tom Petes' lab and am studying chromosome segregation during meiosis of triploid yeast using two different approaches. Typically, during meiosis a diploid yeast cell replicates all chromosomes which then, following two rounds of division, segregate into four daughter spores--each containing a single copy of each chromosome. However, when a triploid yeast cell undergoes meiosis, after DNA replication there are six copies of each chromosome which are then distributed among four daughter spores which receive either one or two copies of each chromosome. I am examining these spores in order to look for patterns such as which chromosomes are typically lost either during or following meiosis, which chromosomes are typically found disomic in pairs, and which chromosomes are well tolerated in two copies. The first triploid strain that we created and studied had three identical backgrounds and we were able to examine these questions using microarrays. The second triploid strain that we created and studied had three different backgrounds which have each been sequenced. By using PCR amplification of polymorphisms specific to each strain I've been able to determine which background a chromosome is from which is helpful to determine if
chromosomes are lost in pairs and if all three chromosomes crossover during meiosis.

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