We are happy to announce that as of March 1st, Stefani Giacopazzi has joined the team as a lab technician. At Single Cell Discoveries, she will mainly focus on processing 10x Genomics samples, sample shipments and general lab maintenance.
She is originally from California and completed her BSc in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. As an undergraduate in her bachelor’s program, Stefani participated in a weekly journal club focused on Alzheimer’s disease where she learned how to critically analyze literature and a variety of datasets from a large breadth of techniques.
After graduating, she volunteered in a Drosophila genetics lab and investigated longevity and motor function in various Drosophila models of Alzheimer’s disease. Eventually, she designed molecular experiments to generate and test her own, novel Drosophila model and used this experimental design to train and mentor new students in the lab. In addition to her mentorship in the lab, she mentored students in the classroom and spent a number of years as a part-time teaching assitant, teaching molecular and cell biology courses to undergraduate students while working full-time.
Stefani also has experience working in the biotechnology industry in quality control, but she spent the majority of her time post-education as a technician and lab manager at UCSC studying C. elegans meiosis. There she gained extensive experience with genetics, molecular techniques, and microscopy. She became excellent at so-called microsurgeries, involving microinjection of worms with CRISPR ribonucleoprotein complexes to generate new mutant strains, followed by microdissection and immunofluorescence of their gonads to visualize how the novel mutations affect meiotic cell progression.
Stefani Giacopazzi is excited to join Single Cell Discoveries and is looking forward to processing samples in the lab and learning every micro detail about single-cell sequencing!