Cinthya joined the Morton Laboratory as a postdoctoral research fellow in March, 2015.

She obtained her Bachelor’s of Science degree in Genomic Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2009. As an undergraduate student, Cinthya was quickly drawn to the study of copy number variants (CNVs); she focused her studies in the identification and validation of a number of regions that could engage in CNV-associated recombination, with potential clinical implications.

Her research motivated Cinthya to pursue a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology under the mentorship of Dr. David L. Spector at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Her thesis work quantitatively described the changes in chromatin interactions upon the occurrence of a 4.3Mb deletion at mouse 4E2. By using 3D DNA FISH, allele 4C-Seq, and RNA-Seq she observed a complex interplay between chromatin structure, gene expression, and cis position effects relevant to the Monosomy 1p36 syndrome.

After completing her Ph.D. in 2014, Cinthya joined the Morton Laboratory as a postdoctoral research fellow in March, 2015. Her research focused on in silico prediction of positional effects of human balanced chromosome rearrangements, using n=1 “variant of uncertain significance” translocations from the Developmental Genome Anatomy Project. Currently, Cinthya is completing Laboratory Genetics and Genomics Clinical training at Mayo Clinic, where she intends to expand on DNA sequencing analysis to provide better health care services to patients. Out of the lab Cinthya is an opera fan, a Japanese figure collector, and professional painter. She has participated in fund-raising events by donating half of her paintings sales to scientific research. Two of her paintings are displayed in Nobel Laureate James D. Watson’s home at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.