Student Directory

Hometown: South Orange, NJ

Undergraduate Education:  BA/06 Biology/Ithaca College, NY

Research Interest: Understanding cellular regulation of retrovirus and retrotransposon replication

Advisor: Leslie Parent, MD
Graduate Program: Cell & Molecular Biology

Thesis: (tba)

Description: Retroelements, including retroviruses and retrotransposons, replicate through an RNA intermediate and integrate into the host genome.  These integrations cause mutations that lead to cancer by disrupting cellular gene expression or damaging DNA.  As a result, cellular defense pathways have evolved to limit retroelement replication.  The overall goal of my work is to understand how retroviruses and retrotransposons overcome or evade these cellular defenses.  Using the oncogenic retrovirus mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) as a model system, we have found that cellular messenger RNA processing factors may constitute part of a defense pathway aimed at restricting retroelement replication.  However, MMTV and other retroelements appear to hijack this cellular defense pathway to facilitate their own replication.

Meeting Presentations

• 2010
  Penn State College of Medicine Graduate Research Forum, Hershey, PA
  15th Annual Meeting of the RNA Society, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
  Cellular & Molecular Biology Research Day, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA
  11th Annual Symposium on Antiviral Drug resistance, Hotel Hershey, Hershey, PA
•  2011
  Penn State College of Medicine Graduate Research Forum, Hershey, PA
  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meeting on Retroviruses, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
  12th Annual Symposium on Antiviral Drug Resistance, Hotel Hershey, PA 
• 2012
  Penn State College of Medicine Graduate Research Forum, Hershey, PA (oral)
  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meeting on Retroviruses, Cold Spring Harbor, NY (oral)
  National MD/PhD Student Conference, Keystone, CO (poster)

Condon M, Adams DC, Bann D, Flaherty K, Gammons J, Johnson J, Lewis ML, Marsteller S, Scheffer SJ, Serna F, and Swensen S. (2008) Uncovering tropical diversity: six sympatric cryptic species of Blepharoneura (Diptera: Tephritidae) in flowers of Gurania spinulosa (Cucurbitaceae) in eastern Ecuador  Biol. J. Linnean Soc 93: 779-797

Bann DV, Parent LJ (2012) Application of Live-Cell RNA Imaging Techniques to the Study of Retroviral RNA Trafficking Viruses 4(6):963-979

Lochman TL, Bann DV, Ryan EP, Beyer AR, Mao A, Cochrane A, Parent LJ (2013) NC-mediated nucleolar localization of retroviral Gag proteins Virus Res 171(2):304-18

Bann DV*, Beyer AR*, Rice B, Pultz IS, Kane M, Goff SP, Golovkina TV, Parent LJ (2012) Nucleolar Trafficking of the Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus Gag Protein Induced by Interaction with Ribosomal Protein L9 J Virol (in press) *authors contributed equally

Nadaraia-Hoke S*, Bann DV*, Lochmann TL, Gudleski-O'Regan N, Parent LJ (2013) Alterations in the MA and NC domains modulate phosphoinositide-dependent plasma membrane localization of the Rous saarcoma virus Gag protein J Virol 87(6):3609-15 *authors contributed equally