Alekhya Kondragunta

About Alekhya Kondragunta

An undergraduate student studying Medical Sciences and Nutrition at the University of Cincinnati with endeavors to pursue graduate school. Currently, I am working as an undergraduate research assistant in the Zacharias Lab at Cincinnati Children\'s Hospital Medical Center. The focus of our research is in understanding the mechanisms underlying how the Wnt signaling pathway has different effects on gene expression during development in nematode worm C. elegans. Formerly serving HOSA Future Health Professionals, an international student-led organization, as a servant leader. I worked to guide all members in HOSA to hone their career technical skill competency, ignite a passion for service, and help mold the leaders of tomorrow. Past work experience entails an undergraduate research assistant position in the Benoit Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati. The focus of my research involved investigating outstanding questions in insect physiology. My work focused on water-content in thrips and their microbiomes in relation to stress biology and reproduction.

Experience

1. Undergraduate Research Assistant

   Cincinnati Children's

   Mar 2023 — Present · Cincinnati, OH, US

   The Zacharias lab is part of the developmental biology department at CCHMC, using the nematode worm C. elegans as a model to translate our findings to vertebrate models. Our lab is focused on how the level of activation impacts target gene regulation, and how these mechanisms are integrated with other context regulators. We are particularly motivated to understand how the response to a signal and other context regulators is encoded in the genome in the form of cis-regulatory elements, pieces of DNA that act as switches to turn gene expression on and off in the appropriate context. Our goal is to understand how the Wnt pathway transcription factor, TCF, and its coactivator, β−catenin, interact with context transcription factors in cis-regulatory elements to regulate transcription in the appropriate context, and use these rules to identify Wnt target genes and predict their expression pattern from sequence alone.

Education

• William Mason High School

  High School Diploma, Honors/Regents High School/Secondary Diploma Program

  2016 — 2020

• University of Cincinnati

  Medical Sciences

  2020 — 2024