Caitlin Nichols

Caitlin received her BS in molecular biology with a minor in editing from Brigham Young University. While at BYU, she worked in the lab of Laura Bridgewater, PhD, where she studied the function of a novel nuclear variant of BMP2 (nBMP2) in skeletal muscle, as well as the role of the unfolded protein response (UPR) in mouse models of osteoarthritis. She also worked in the lab of Steven Graves, PhD, studying the ability of a novel proteomic approach to identify differences between complex biological tissues, including normal and preeclamptic human placenta. Caitlin’s work in the Beroukhim Lab focused on identifying and validating a novel class of cancer vulnerabilities caused by loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of cell-essential genes. She also studied the role of TERC amplification in cellular immortalization/transformation. She received numerous awards for scientific communication in presenting her project, and after completing her PhD she joined 23&Me.