Kristen John, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Kristen John first became interested in human disease research as an undergraduate student at Liberty University where she studied the human fungal pathogen, Cryptococcus neoformans under Dr. Michael Price. It was also at Liberty where she discovered her love for the field of genetics, being fascinated by how a small mutation or alteration in the DNA could be responsible for an entire disease. This led her to pursue her Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics at North Carolina State University, where she combined her love of infectious disease research with genetics in the lab of Dr. Xinxia Peng. Here, she worked on characterizing the functions of novel long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) involved in influenza infection and innate immunity with the goal of identifying new gene therapeutic targets for viral infection. From this research, she identified and named a lncRNA – VILMIR (virus inducible lncRNA modulator of interferon response), that she found regulated the host interferon response.

During her graduate studies, Dr. John grew her love for teaching and mentorship, training undergraduate students in her lab to generate CRISPR human cell lines. She is passionate about training up the next generation of scientists and using genetics research as a way to point to our ultimate Designer and Creator. Dr. John is immensely grateful for the foundation that her undergraduate education at Liberty provided her, and she hopes to instill that same foundation in new students.

Courses Taught

• BIOL224L – General Biology I Lab
• BIOL301L – Genetics Lab
• BIOL420L – Immunology Lab

Research Interests

• Long non-coding RNA’s (IncRNA’s)
• Infectious disease
• Interferon and innate immunity
• CRISPR/Cas9 systems