Graduate Student
Program in Molecular and Cellular Biosciences
Molecular & Medical Genetics, School of Medicine

Casey Thornton graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2015 with a B.S. in Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology. Her interest in computational biology started in her home state of Maine, where she studied genetic contributors to the complex trait of Type II diabetes at the Jackson Laboratories. In her undergraduate research she worked on a variety of projects in the bioinformatics field. Casey developed algorithms for DNA motif recognition with Dr. Jacque Fresco at Princeton University and Dr. Eline Luning-Prak at University of Pennsylvania. For her senior thesis, she did split-GFP biosensor design and synthesis of under the direction of Dr. Chris Bystroff. Following her undergraduate work, Casey became a research assistant at the University of California, Berkeley. Casey developed treatments for neurodegenerative retinal disorders during her time at Berkeley. In 2018, she joined the Adey lab in the Program in Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at OHSU for her graduate studies. Broadly, Casey is interested in developing and using computational tools that contribute to the advancement of precision medicine. Her work in the Adey lab is focused on spatially resolving epigenetic characteristics of single cells in brain tissue.