Dr Mitchell Cummins

I am a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab of SHARP Professor of RNA Biology John Mattick (lab website https://www.lncrna.net/).

Our primary research focuses are evolution, neurodevelopment, cognition, and the role of brain lncRNAs in these processes. To do this we combine bioinformatic (e.g. genome multi-alignment, DNA and RNA-sequencing analyses, SNP analyses), molecular (qPCR, Western blotting, RNA-seq, Mass-spec, CRISPR/Cas9 knockout, antisense oligonucleotide RNA knockdown, TREX), imaging (RNAscope, immunofluorescence) and behavioural phenotyping approaches.

I am also interested in the function of ultraconserved elements (UCEs) in animal genomes, especially in placental mammals (see http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msae146) and have co-designed a program to identify UCEs called dedUCE (https://github.com/slimsuite/deduce).

I completed my PhD(Anatomy) at the University of Newcastle under supervisor Associate Professor Doug Smith investigating the blood-brain barrier (see http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11357-024-01404-9), neuroimmune pathways, and transposable elements in the aging CNS.