Biography

Lucas T. Graybuck (also published as Lucas T. Gray) joined the Allen Institute in 2014 to work in the Mouse Cell Types program under the direction of Bosiljka Tasic. He contributes to projects related to cell type identification, labeling, and epigenetic perturbation for the Mouse Cell Types, Human Genetic Tools, and Epigenetic Control in Transgenic Mice projects.

Before joining the Allen Institute, he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Dr. Nancy Maizels at the University of Washington. In this position, he studied the roles of G-quadruplex (G4) DNA structures in human gene transcription, and the consequences of disordered expression of G4-unwinding DNA helicases BLM and WRN. His work also explored the genomic binding patterns of general transcription factor TFIIH helicases XPB and XPD, which also interact with G4 DNA.

He earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in the lab of Dr. Alan Weiner at the University of Washington where he studied the domesticated piggyBac transposase fusion protein CSB-PGBD3. CSB-PGBD3 is found only in the genomes of simian primates, and appears to be conserved as a transcription factor. His work in the Weiner lab also included transcriptomic analysis of gene expression in cell lines from patients with Cockayne Syndrome, a genetic disorder with both neurodevelopmental and progeria-like symptoms, and conservation analysis of the neural-specific domesticated transposase PGBD5.