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Lab Members - Dyna Shirasaki

Dyna Shirasaki obtained her Bachelor's of Arts in Chemistry from Occidental College in 2001 where she performed her undergraduate research in the labs of Dr. Michael Hill and Dr. W. Reef Hardy. She came to UCLA in September 2001, first at a Biomedical Engineering major, switching later to Biochemistry in January 2002. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in both the Loo Lab and the lab of William Yang (Neurobehavioral Genetics Research Center) in a collaborative effort merging the fields of proteomics and genetics.

Dyna's research focuses on huntingtin, the protein responsible for Huntington's disease (HD). HD is a progressive, autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease resulting from an expanded CAG repeat in the N-terminus of the huntingtin gene, which translates into an expanded polyglutamine segment in the huntingtin protein. While the exact function of huntingtin still remains unclear, insight has been gained through the study of its interacting proteins. Using a novel BAC (Bacterial Artificial Chromosome) transgenic mouse model that reproduces many phenotypic features reminiscent of adult-onset HD, Dyna searches for huntingtin interacting proteins in different brain regions and seeks to determine how these interactions change as the disease progresses.

As a side project, Dyna also sings with the all-girl AC/DC tribute, ThundHerStruck.