Rebecca Pasquarelli

Postdoctoral Research Fellow @Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)

Boston, MA, US

Lab of Dr. Stephen Elledge (HHMI Investigator, Professor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women\'s Hospital). Employed as Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the lab since September 2024. Appointed as an HHMI Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation in July 2025.• Leading the development of improved T cell activation reporter cell lines in Jurkat cells to increase sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio in high-throughput antigen screening assays. • Isolated RNA, prepped libraries for RNA-seq, and analyzed NGS data to assess differential gene expression in resting vs. activated T cells at multiple timepoints and identify activation-inducible genes. Currently employing CRISPR/Cas9 knock-in strategies targeting these candidates.• Designing and initiating construction of a synthetic naive T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire library for antigen screening, aiming to uncover patterns in TCR-antigen specificity to inform the design of novel TCR-based therapies. • Applying a broad molecular and cellular toolkit, including mammalian cell culture, viral vector-based gene delivery, molecular cloning, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, RNA-seq library preparation and data analysis, and flow cytometry/FACS.• Troubleshooting and optimizing experimental protocols to address technical challenges and advance project goals in a dynamic research environment.

Brown University

Bachelor of Science - BS

University of California, Los Angeles

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD