Socrates Fellows Who We Are 2010-2011 Alyssa Wu-Zhang
Alyssa Wu-Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in her fourth year in the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program at UC San Diego. Alyssa was born in Beijing, China, but grew up mostly in the Seattle area. She attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and double majored in chemistry and biology.
While at Cornell, she was an honors introductory chemistry TA, a chemistry Academic Excellence Workshop facilitator, a biology student advisor, and a campus tour guide. She did undergraduate research in fungal circadian rhythm proteins at Cornell as a Hughes Scholar and in nanotechnology during an NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates program at Stanford. After graduating from college, she worked for a year as a research scientist and lab manager in a cardiology lab at the University of Washington, where she investigated a mechanism for atherosclerosis.
Alyssa is currently conducting her thesis research in Professor Alexandra Newton’s lab, where she studies the spatiotemporal dynamics of protein kinase C signaling using live cell fluorescence imaging. Protein kinase C (PKC) is an important family of signal transduction isozymes whose dysregulation is implicated in diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and the novel isoform PKCd in particular is essential in mitochondrial-dependent apoptosis. Elucidating the molecular mechanisms of PKCd signaling at mitochondria, critical organelles that serve the eukaryotic cell’s energy needs and execute programmed cell death, may prove valuable to an understanding of signaling biology and disease mechanism.
During her graduate studies at UCSD, Alyssa has taught San Diego middle school students an interactive three-day genetics curriculum through the Salk Mobile Science Lab. She is excited for the present opportunity to create an innovative science curriculum for high school students as a Socrates Fellow.
