Katherine “Katie” Lucot ’08 completed her doctorate of philosophy at UC Davis in June 2018. Her area of focus was translational genomics, using dogs as a model for human disease.
Katie specifically studied birth defects, with the hopes of helping children. She found the mutation for Neuroaxonal Dystrophy (NAD) in Rottweiler dogs. Humans also get this disease and her discovery can now assist in the diagnosis and research of undiagnosed cases of NAD in humans. It also enables dog breeders to prevent this from occurring in their dogs.
Katie is now a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, in the School of Medicine, where she is studying the genetics behind Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease. She is currently researching the genetic differences underlying the pathology of Parkinson’s disease and aims to improve early detection of the disease using PET imaging.
Katherine’s academic credentials
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Doctor of Philosophy, University of California Davis (2018)
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Master of Science, University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Animal Breeding and Genetics (2014)
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Bachelor of Science, California State Polytechnic University (2012)
- Carondelet High School (2008)
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