Christiana Binkley

I was born and raised outside of Columbus, Ohio (go Buckeyes!) and love my city! Before moving to Madison, I attended Kenyon College in rural Ohio where I studied amino acid metabolism in Arabidopsis thaliana in a biochemistry lab. During my first college summer, I joined an REU at UMass Boston where I studied transcriptomic signatures of quiescence in Antarctic krill, and presented my results at the international ASLO meeting in Granada, Spain. During subsequent summers and after graduation, I worked at The Ohio State University researching HIV-1 and Rous Sarcoma Virus. I was interested in how the viral Gag protein selects genomic RNAs for packaging, and how the RNA packaging signal psi contributes to Gag selectivity. Now in Madison, I’m enjoying working in the Landick Lab on the expressome project. I am characterizing transcription and translation coupling in bacteria using in vitro reconstitution experiments and introducing a variety of reporters to control and monitor the system.

Outside the lab, I enjoy road trips, camping, kayaking, running, playing guitar, and Babcock ice cream! I’m enjoying trying new beers at local breweries throughout Wisconsin, and trying to find the best cheese curds in town (send me your suggestions!). I love browsing the Capitol Square farmer’s market in the summers, visiting my family during breaks, and spending evenings at home watching The X-Files with friends.

You can follow my science adventures on Twitter @christibink!