Roles
Assoc. Professor of Microbiology and Immunology - Pending Rank
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Biography
I graduated from Oklahoma State University with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering and the University of California, Berkeley with a Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. My doctoral training as an engineer and my postdoctoral training in molecular biology and virology prepared me with the knowledge and skills to translate biological tools in the laboratory into biological therapeutics in the clinic. In the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center (SCCC) at the University of Miami, my research aims to investigate and develop therapies for cancers associated with mitochondrial dysregulation. Before coming to Miami in 2023, I was an Assistant Professor in the Center of Gene Therapy at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. I am an enrolled member and a voting citizen of Muscogee Nation, born and raised within the boundaries of our federally recognized reservation in Oklahoma and descended from the Rekackv (Broken Arrow) Tribal Town. I am a Sequoyah Fellow with lifetime membership in the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). As the only Native American faculty member at City of Hope, I was the Founder and Executive Sponsor of the Indigenous People Alliance (IPA), an employee resource group (ERG) that supports Indigenous employees and students, improves recruitment and retention of Indigenous students and employees, and partners with Indigenous communities in Southern California. -
Education & Training
Education
Post Graduate Training
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Honors & Awards
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Teaching Interests
As Assistant Professor at the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope from 2015-2022, I had the opportunity to teach parts of 12 graduate-level courses IGMS: four semesters in “Principles of Gene Expression” (BIOSCI 520); four semesters in “Fundamentals of Scientific Research” (BIOSCI 506); one semester in “Cell Biology” (BIOSCI 530); and three semesters in “Advanced RNA” (BIOSCI 650). I have supervised four PhD graduate students and two postdocs. I graduated my first two PhD students in the fall of 2020 and two more in the fall of 2021. Since 2011, I have served on the PhD or MS Dissertation Committees for 26 graduate students at the Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences at City of Hope, one PhD student at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), one PhD student at Yale University, one MS student at California State University Los Angeles, and one MS candidate at the University of Minnesota. I am also an active member of professional societies that support underrepresented minorities (URM) in STEM, including the American Indian Society of Engineering and Science (AISES), the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), the Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics (SING), and the Minority Genetic Professionals Network (MGPN). -
Research Interests
The Burnett laboratory focuses on creating cell and gene therapies for a broad range of human diseases. By applying advances in molecular and cellular biology with principles of biomolecular engineering, my lab develops technologies for precision medicine. In particular, we are constructing RNA-based and gene-based therapies with properties that are unavailable to conventional pharmacological agents. My lab has engineered a novel CRISPR gene editing system for mitochondria-related applications, which relies on the independent yet highly efficient localization of the Cas9 or Cpf1 enzymes and the CRISPR guide RNAs to the mitochondrial matrix. The delivery of the RNA component(s) to the mitochondrial matrix is particularly novel and noteworthy, and these collective technologies have led to three patents. This mtDNA-specific genome editing system, which we have termed ‘mitoCRISPR’, offers new strategies for treating diseases caused by mtDNA mutations and for the construction of novel disease models for mtDNA diseases. The mitoCRISPR technology is also a powerful in analyzing mitochondrial and genetic factors associated with cancer metabolism. Specifically, with my City of Hope collaborators Drs. Pullarkat and Marcucci (Hoang, et al. 2022), we have been characterizing mitochondrial DNA mutations in AML and engineering novel mtDNA disease models for AML and other hematologic cancers. I am now expanding this work with new colleagues at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center who share my interest in cancer metabolism. -
Publications
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Professional Activities
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