Melanie O'Rourke

Melanie is originally from Long Island, New York and was raised in South Florida. She received her B.S. in Industrial Biotechnology from Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida. During her undergraduate studies Melanie submitted an unpublished gene to the NCBI's SRA using next generation sequencing. Following graduation, she worked with a local biotech startup conducting product and method development as well as optimizations for an enzyme therapeutic.

Her current research in the Tessier-Lavigne lab investigates the characteristics of a novel caspase-cleavage product in addition to the divergent role of the apoptotic pathway in axonal degeneration of sensory neurons.