Contact Information
Summary
Fiona Shao was born in New Jersey and spent her first decade there before moving to Illinois. She graduated from Waubonsie Valley High School and was a 2020 Illinois State Scholar. She completed the first year of a Bachelor’s in Biochemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before transferring to Northwestern University. There, she would continue her studies and graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences, specializing in genetics, along with minors in statistics and psychology.
Research Statement
Isabelle's research interests span the field of biological sciences, including genetics, stem cell regeneration, and immunology. At the Andersen Lab at Northwestern University, Fiona helped cultivate a deletion strain of beta-tubulin genes in C. elegans, as well as assisting with data cleaning and analysis for studying the fitness effects of resistance alleles in C. elegans.
At the Petersen Lab at Northwestern University, Fiona's research focused on the pigmentation pathway in H. miamia. She worked to identify a pigmentation gene to be used as a phenotypic marker for successful gene deletion strains.
At St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, her research focused on creating a fused protein receptor-ligand of ST2 and IL-33 and how its presence in cytotoxic lymphocytes could impact the functional performance of finding and eliminating tumor cells.
Scientific Publications
Education
Northwestern University
B.A., Biological Sciences (Genetics), (2024)
University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign
Biochemistry (2020-2021)
Experience
Summer Research Internship
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, TN (2024)
Student Researcher
Northwestern University, IL (2022-2024)