Megan Y. Dennis, Ph.D., (D.Phil.)
Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine
Specialties
Genetics
Genomic Medicine
Department
Locations and Contact
Genome and Biomedical Sciences Building
Genome & Biomedical Sciences Facility
451 Health Sciences Dr
Davis, CA 95616
Phone: 530-752-2884
Additional Numbers
Clinic Phone
Research/Academic Interests
Dr. Dennis's research focuses on identifying genes and variants contributing to neurodevelopment impacting unique human cognitive features as well as disorders, including autism and epilepsy. Her group employs innovative genome sequencing approaches to identify variants/genes as well as functional genomics and model organisms (namely, zebrafish) to understand their functions in neurodevelopment.
Division
Biological Chemistry
Center/Program Affiliation
Undergraduate School
B.S., Biochemical Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI 2004
Other School
Ph.D./D.Phil., Human Genetics, NIH/OxCam Biomedical Research Program University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 2009
Fellowship
National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD 2009-2010
Fellowship
Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle WA 2010-2015
NSF CAREER Award, 2022
NIH Director's New Innovator Award, NIH/OD, 2018
Sloan Fellowship for Young Investigators, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 2016
K99/R00: NIH Pathway to Independence Award (NINDS/NIH), 2013
F32: NIH Ruth L. Kirchstein NRSA for Individual Postdoctoral Fellows (NICHD/NIH), 2012
To view a complete list of Dr. Dennis' publications, please click here.
Uribe-Salazar JM, Kaya G, Sekar A, Weyenberg K, Ingamells C, Dennis MY. Evaluation of CRISPR gene-editing tools in zebrafish. BMC Genomics. 2022 Jan 6;23(1):12. doi:10.1186/s12864-021-08238-1. PMID:34986794.
Sekar A, Sanches TM, Hino K, Kumar M, Wang J, Ha E, Durbin-Johnson B, Simó S, Dennis MY. RapID Cell Counter: Semi-Automated and Mid-Throughput Estimation of Cell Density within Diverse Cortical Layers. eNeuro. 2021 Nov 30;8(6):ENEURO.0185-21.2021. doi:10.1523/ENEURO.0185-21.2021. PMID:34725102.
Shew CJ, Carmona-Mora P, Soto DC, Mastoras M, Roberts E, Rosas J, Jagannathan D, Kaya G, O'Geen H, Dennis MY. Diverse Molecular Mechanisms Contribute to Differential Expression of Human Duplicated Genes. Mol Biol Evol. 2021 Jul 29;38(8):3060-3077. doi:10.1093/molbev/msab131. PMID:34009325.
Aganezov S, Yan SM, Soto DC, Kirsche M, Zarate S, Avdeyev P, Taylor DJ, Shafin K, Shumate A, Xiao C, Wagner J, McDaniel J, Olson ND, Sauria MEG, Vollger MR, Rhie A, Meredith M, Martin S, Lee J, Koren S, Rosenfeld JA, Paten B, Layer R, Chin C-S, Sedlazeck FJ, Hansen NF, Miller DE, Phillippy AM, Miga KH, McCoy RC, Dennis MY, Zook JM, Schatz MC. A complete reference genome improves analysis of human genetic variation. bioRxiv. 2021. doi:10.1101/2021.07.12.452063.
Colón-Rodríguez A, Uribe-Salazar JM, Weyenberg KB, Sriram A, Quezada A, Kaya G, Jao E, Radke B, Lein PJ, Dennis MY. Assessment of Autism Zebrafish Mutant Models Using a High-Throughput Larval Phenotyping Platform. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2020 Nov 23;8:586296. doi:10.3389/fcell.2020.586296. PMID:33330465.
Soto DC, Shew C, Mastoras M, Schmidt JM, Sahasrabudhe R, Kaya G, Andrés AM, Dennis MY. Identification of Structural Variation in Chimpanzees Using Optical Mapping and Nanopore Sequencing. Genes (Basel). 2020 Mar 4;11(3):276. doi:10.3390/genes11030276. PMID:32143403.
Dennis MY, Harshman L, Nelson BJ, Penn O, Cantsilieris S, Huddleston J, Antonacci F, Penewit K, Denman L, Raja A, Baker C, Mark K, Malig M, Janke N, Espinoza C, Stessman HA, Nuttle X, Hoekzema K, Graves TA, Wilson RK, Eichler EE. The evolution and population diversity of human-specific segmental duplications. Nat Ecol Evol. 2017 Feb;1:0069. doi:10.1038/s41559-016-0069.
Dennis MY, Eichler EE. Human adaptation and evolution by segmental duplication. Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2016 Dec;41:44-52. doi:10.1016/j.gde.2016.08.001. Epub 2016 Aug 30. PMID:27584858.
Antonacci F, Dennis MY, Huddleston J, Sudmant PH, Steinberg KM, Rosenfeld JA, Miroballo M, Graves TA, Vives L, Malig M, Denman L, Raja A, Stuart A, Tang J, Munson B, Shaffer LG, Amemiya CT, Wilson RK, Eichler EE. Palindromic GOLGA8 core duplicons promote chromosome 15q13.3 microdeletion and evolutionary instability. Nat Genet. 2014 Dec;46(12):1293-302. doi:10.1038/ng.3120. Epub 2014 Oct 19. PMID:25326701.