Difference between revisions of "User:Rachel"

Latest revision as of 06:02, 2 May 2024

Who I am

An experienced molecular biologist with keen interest in genomic integrity, a big picture concept for public health that basically includes all the molecular genetic details in cells, I was born in New York, but grew up on the West Coast of the United States, going north with each move, from CA to OR to WA. Completing my doctorate in microbiology on retroviral RNA packaging in Seattle, I have had the opportunity to live in many wonderful places, and work on many interesting things.

From worms to mice, for molecular micro- and neuro- biology studies over the course of my academic career, I, for instance, cloned an RNA-level quality control factor of cells (smg-4/Upf3) defining a new motif central for this conserved cellular quality control system, and also worked at the EPFL, helping define and modify mammalian neural circuits for sensory perception.

In about 2006, I became aware how the so many environmental factors and even things *we* choose to do can impact genomic integrity. While repair of damage does happen in cells, sometimes the end result is new mutations, that can also affect future generations. Therefore, awareness and prevention are of great interest for health. To these ends I founded the non-profit group AGiR! Action for Genomic integrity through Research! to provide information and promote research into these issues. I am also very interested in measuring amounts and effects of environmental pollutants and have worked with biosensors for arsenic and BTEX/PAH compounds in the UNIL fundamental microbiology (DMF UNIL) department. In fact, the latter experience is the reason Hackuarium came to my attention, an open public community lab, in which I have become more & more implicated over the last years...

In addition to AGiR! projects at Hackuarium, I would like to improve science communication and facilitate participatory research projects especially, and helped Hammerdirt in the Montreux Clean Beach Project with microbiological monitoring over eight weeks during two consecutive summers, with a round of sampling (without the Jazz !) in 2020 providing further statistical basis for a peer-reviewed publication. All this ultimately led to two more summers of sampling (with sponsorship by the Jazz), and 2023 as our cleanest to date. A win!? (more details)

Our urban garden project with pea plants and symbiotic bacteria also ran for its fourth year during the pandemic. (In 2022, we had a 'control' year, with a big field of peas to follow closely in the neighborhood, sowed in the winter with an interesting pink coating... For the 2024 season, we will try a new inoculant...)
Since 2018, I was 'naturalised' as a Swiss citizen, but am still working on using more French! (désolées, ami/es francophones... ça peut arriver, avec ton aide?! :)
More information about my career path can be found in LinkedIn.

Why I love Hackuarium

The DIT-Research possibilities (Do-It-Together!) synergise at Hackuarium, and the vibrant community is amazing!

How to contact me

Email me at: rachel(at)hackuarium(dot)ch

What I have been working on at Hackuarium

The genomic integrity experiments, especially the cheek cell chip attempts for AGiR! are my personal projects, with the sustainability of our association a big goal since joining the board.
I got into all this biohacking world through chance, however, with a biosensor course organised with founding members of Hackuarium, my big intro to open science (thanks to Jan, Sachiko and Robin).
The #mycelia4bees project and #qualitycontrol4genes project are my current big efforts, in addition to a general P1 biosafety/biosecurity focus and other lab space organisation as one of the 'lab coordinators' of our community lab.
Helping others to fulfill their projects at Hackuarium is very rewarding, while working to make this all sustainable is still a great challenge.
I welcome your help!

Declaration of further interests

Founder and CSO of AGiR! Action for Genomic integrity through Research!, a non-profit association for public health, meant to provide information and promote research on the dynamic processes happening in all of our cells. Genomic integrity is about much more than just fixed DNA sequences. It is dynamic, includes epigenetics and all sorts of RNAs, and many things we do regularly can affect it, potentially in a negative fashion, also impacting the environment and future generations.

Sometime consultant for SwissDeCode, which aims at fast detection of food contamination and is not quite a 'spin-off' of the old Hackuarium project, BeerDeCoded.

Mother of two grown daughters, book, art and music lover, and keen amateur volleyball player (Echandens women's team)!

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+[[File:20190906 RAcutsBands.jpg |200px|thumb|right|]]
 == Who I am ==
+An experienced molecular biologist with keen interest in genomic integrity, a big picture concept for public health that basically includes all the molecular genetic details in cells, I was born in New York, but grew up on the West Coast of the United States, going north with each move, from CA to OR to WA. Completing my doctorate in microbiology on retroviral RNA packaging in Seattle, I have had the opportunity to live in many wonderful places, and work on many interesting things.<br>
+From worms to mice, for molecular micro- and neuro- biology studies over the course of my academic career, I, for instance, cloned an RNA-level quality control factor of cells (smg-4/Upf3) defining a new motif central for this conserved cellular quality control system, and also worked at the EPFL, helping define and modify mammalian neural circuits for sensory perception.
-Rachel Aronoff is an experienced molecular biologist with keen interest in genomic integrity, a big picture concept for public health that basically includes all the molecular genetic details in cells.  So many environmental factors and even things we choose to do can impact genomic integrity.  While repair of damage does happen in cells, sometimes the end result is new mutations, that can also affect future generations.  Therefore awareness and prevention are of great interest for health.  Rachel founded the non-profit group AGiR! Action for Genomic integrity through Research! to provide information and promote research into these issues.  She also is very interested in measuring amounts and effects of environmental pollutants and has worked with arsenic biosensors in the UNIL fundamental microbiology department.  She would like to help bring citizen science projects forward especially, as co-president of the Hackuarium with Vanessa.
+In about 2006, I became aware how the so many environmental factors and even things *we* choose to do can impact genomic integrity.  While repair of damage does happen in cells, sometimes the end result is new mutations, that can also affect future generations.  Therefore, awareness and prevention are of great interest for health. To these ends I founded the non-profit group [https://www.genomicintegrity.org AGiR!] Action for Genomic integrity through Research! to provide information and promote research into these issues.  I am also very interested in measuring amounts and effects of environmental pollutants and have worked with biosensors for arsenic and BTEX/PAH compounds in the UNIL fundamental microbiology (DMF UNIL) department. In fact, the latter experience is the reason Hackuarium came to my attention, an open public community lab, in which I have become more & more implicated over the last years...
+In addition to AGiR! projects at Hackuarium, I would like to improve science communication and facilitate participatory research projects especially, and helped Hammerdirt in the Montreux Clean Beach Project with microbiological monitoring over eight weeks during two consecutive summers, with a round of sampling (without the Jazz !) in 2020 providing further statistical basis for a [https://doi.org/10.1002/2688-8319.12094 peer-reviewed publication]. All this ultimately led to two more summers of sampling (with sponsorship by the Jazz), and 2023 as our cleanest to date.  A win!? ([[Montreux 2023|more details]])
+Our urban garden project with pea plants and symbiotic bacteria also ran for its fourth year during the pandemic. (In 2022, we had a 'control' year, with a big field of peas to follow closely in the neighborhood, sowed in the winter with an interesting pink coating... For the 2024 season, we will try a new inoculant...)<br>
+Since 2018, I was 'naturalised' as a Swiss citizen, but am still working on using more French!  (désolées, ami/es francophones... ça peut arriver, avec ton aide?! :)<br>
+More information about my career path can be found in [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelaronoff/ LinkedIn].
 == Why I love Hackuarium ==
-The DIT- Research possibilities (Do-It-Together!) synergise at the Hackuarium, and the vibrant community is amazing!
+The DIT-Research possibilities (Do-It-Together!) synergise at Hackuarium, and the vibrant community is amazing!
 == How to contact me ==
-Email me at:  rachelaronoff(at)gmail(dot)com
+Email me at:  rachel(at)hackuarium(dot)ch
+== What I have been working on at Hackuarium==
+The genomic integrity experiments, especially the [http://wiki.hackuarium.ch/w/AGiR!_for_genomic_integrity/cometassaydev cheek cell chip attempts for AGiR!] are my personal projects, with the sustainability of our association a big goal since joining the board.<br>I got into all this biohacking world through chance, however, with a biosensor course organised with founding members of Hackuarium, my big intro to open science (thanks to Jan, Sachiko and Robin).<br>The #mycelia4bees project and #qualitycontrol4genes project are my current big efforts, in addition to a general P1 biosafety/biosecurity focus and other lab space organisation as one of the 'lab coordinators' of our community lab.<br>
+Helping others to fulfill their projects at Hackuarium is very rewarding, while working to make this all sustainable is still a great challenge.<br>
+I welcome your help!
+== Declaration of further interests ==
+Founder and CSO of [http://www.genomicintegrity.org AGiR! Action for Genomic integrity through Research!], a non-profit association for public health, meant to provide information and promote research on the dynamic processes happening in all of our cells.  Genomic integrity is about much more than just fixed DNA sequences. It is dynamic, includes epigenetics and all sorts of RNAs, and many things we do regularly can affect it, potentially in a negative fashion, also impacting the environment and future generations.
+Sometime consultant for [http://www.swissdecode.com/ SwissDeCode], which aims at fast detection of food contamination and is not quite a 'spin-off' of the old Hackuarium project, [http://wiki.hackuarium.ch/w/BeerDeCoded BeerDeCoded].
-== What I am currently working on ==
+Mother of two grown daughters, book, art and music lover, and keen amateur volleyball player (Echandens women's team)!
-At the end of a 6-month sabbatical after finishing a project management position at a private company, I had six weeks to travel in Australia, and met with both Sydney and Melbourne biohackers.
-I hope the two AGiR! projects at the Hackuarium, the cheek cell assays for DNA damage, and the moss fauna studies, will be beta-tested all over the world for big data possibilities about environmental risks to genomic integrity and biodiversity on our planet!