Dalen Fultz

Background

About Dalen Fultz

My PhD and post-doctoral experience have given me thorough training in molecular biology and genetics using plant models. I have spent the majority of the last six years training in bioinformatics for my post-doctoral project. I have greatly enjoyed doing basic research during this time, but I am interested in expanding into more practical research in plant biology, biological engineering, and bioinformatics. As we deepen our knowledge about living systems, I think that biotechnology will yield a greener and more productive world and revolutionize medicine. During my PhD, I investigated the recognition and silencing of transposable elements through siRNA and DNA methylation in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. During my post-doc, I have become an expert in performing and analyzing Oxford Nanopore's MinION sequencing, with experience in PacBio's SMRT sequencing and Illumina sequencing as well. Most of my last year has been spent writing custom Python scripts and snakemake pipelines to allow assembly of the Arabidopsis 45S rRNA gene repeats. This pipeline has successfully allowed me to assemble nearly the entirety of these multi-megabase repeats. This technical challenge has been left unfinished for over 20 years after the genome was first published. I hope to continue to develop my skills in bioinformatics, programming, and new technologies in genome editing and sequencing in my next position.