{"id":3536,"date":"2024-07-11T19:16:47","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T19:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/?post_type=profiles&#038;p=3536"},"modified":"2025-12-09T12:25:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:25:21","slug":"kennedy-clark","status":"publish","type":"profiles","link":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/profiles\/kennedy-clark\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy Clark"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1443\" height=\"1443\" src=\"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/08\/ClarkKennedy.jpg\" alt=\"Kennedy, headshot\" class=\"wp-image-3748\" style=\"width:200px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/08\/ClarkKennedy.jpg 1443w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/08\/ClarkKennedy-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/08\/ClarkKennedy-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/08\/ClarkKennedy-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/08\/ClarkKennedy-768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1443px) 100vw, 1443px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>MIT Department: <\/strong>Biological Engineering<br><strong>Faculty Mentor: <\/strong>Prof. Ed Boyden<br><strong>Research Supervisor:<\/strong> Debarati Ghosh<br><strong>Undergraduate Institution:<\/strong> North Carolina Central University <br><strong>Hometown:<\/strong> Charlotte, North Carolina<br><strong>Website:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/kennedy-clark-a394211b1\/\">LinkedIn<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:0px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Biography<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Kennedy A. Clark is a senior Biomedical Sciences honors student at North Carolina Central University. Her interests lie in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience, and she plans to pursue an M.D.\/Ph.D. to focus on mental illnesses and learning disabilities to help further innovate current treatments. Within her home institution, she works to understand the effects of ethanol on the adolescent brain. In the summer of 2023, through the Duke &#8211; NC Central Alcohol Research Education program, she discovered that sex had no effect on Cyp2e1, a liver enzyme, during binge drinking.She is now part of Dr. Ed Boyden\u2019s laboratory within the Brain &amp; Cognitive Sciences Building. She aids in increasing the capabilities of Expansion Sequencing, a technique that creates high-resolution maps of RNA and views gene expression differences within cellular and tissue samples. She serves as a co-captain of NCCU&#8217;s women&#8217;s volleyball team and enjoys drawing, exploring, and video games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Abstract <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Optimizing Reverse Transcription Within Expansion Sequencing To Increase The Untargeted Expansion Sequencing Yield<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Kennedy Clark\u00b9, Debarati Ghosh\u00b2, Edward Boyden\u00b3<\/strong><br>\u00b9Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, North Carolina Central University<br>\u00b2Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Expansion Sequencing (ExSeq) is a newly developed technique that involves physically expanding an intact tissue sample that has been chemically immersed in polyelectrolyte gel in order to perform in situ RNA sequencing. This allows for the genetic activity to be analyzed when it could not be reached before. The UnTargeted (non-specific mapping of genes) ExSeq provides a broader scope of sequencing RNA in an unbiased way and has the capability to reveal thousands of genes within a sample concentration. However, within the current UnTargeted ExSeq protocol the reverse transcript (RT) step must relinquish to padlock probes binding on targeted RNA templates, although RT is a process necessary in biochemically modifying anchored RNA\u2019s into sequence-able in situ forms (21\u2019). The aim of this project is to improve the UnTargeted ExSeq protocol for unbiased nanoscale sequencing via optimizing the RT step and increasing the specificity of the in situ library. An ideal capability of those technologies would be to expand its tissue range to those outside of the lungs and brain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3748,"template":"","profile_category":[22],"class_list":["post-3536","profiles","type-profiles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","profile_category-2024-interns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/3536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profiles"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/3536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4890,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/3536\/revisions\/4890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"profile_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_category?post=3536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}