School of Medicine

Kirsten Wood Termine is a senior PhD student in the Department of Genetics at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was born and raised in south Louisiana, and received her Bachelor of Sciences degree from Loyola University New Orleans in 2013, where she majored in Biology and minored in Forensic Science. Under the mentorship of Dr. Diptasri Mandal, Kirsten is utilizing bioinformatics platforms to identify germline copy number variations associated with hereditary prostate cancer (HPC) in both African American and Caucasian men. The use of next-generation sequencing approaches to identify germline structural variants within HPC families will contribute to the impending need for cancer biomarker identification in the era of precision medicine, allowing for the facilitation of PCa screening in HPC families. Following graduation, Kirsten plans to attend law school with the goal of becoming a patent/intellectual property attorney, focusing on pharmacogenomics and precision medicine.