Research Interests
Dr. Rebecca Keener began her career in research at UMBC in Baltimore, MD as an undergraduate lab associate and major in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She worked with Dr. Charles Bieberich to produce a mouse model of abacterial prostate inflammation that can be used to assay candidate drug therapies for benign prostate hyperplasia. Keener continued her research career at Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine as a graduate student in the Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology program. Her graduate work with Dr. Carol Greider focused on molecular biology and genetics research. She discovered that the signaling pathways used to regulate the DNA damage response are mechanistically distinct from those that regulate telomere length equilibrium. As an IRACDA postdoctoral fellow awardee at Johns Hopkins University, Keener combined her experience in genetics with computational approaches to study human genome variation underlying telomere length regulation while working with Dr. Alexis Battle and Dr. Rasika Mathias. She is currently an assistant research scientist working with Dr. Battle and interested in leveraging genome-wide datasets to gain insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying complex traits.
Education
- PhD, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 2019
- BS, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, 2012