Overview

Since college, Flavia Bossi has always been interested in the regulation of gene expression; promoters and transcription factors are still her favorite areas of study. Following that interest, she joined Patricia Leon’s lab at the Instituto de Biotecnologia (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) to work on the functional characterization of an AP2/ERF transcription factor involved in the glucose signaling pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana. It was a challenging Ph.D. project that excited, frustated, and at times puzzled her.

Early in 2010, she decided to join Sue Rhee’s lab to study a family of regulatory proteins important for another level of gene regulation – targeted degradation of proteins. She was drawn to the Rhee lab for several different reasons. 1- to try to grasp the way of thinking of bioinformatitians (learn basic bioinformatics along the way), 2- to be part of an interesting multidisciplinary group, 3- looking for something new and outside of her comfort zone.

Even though science eats up most of her time, she does have other interests. Her most beloved hobby has always been dance, both taking classes and enjoying dance performances. Moving to the Bay Area introduced ger to another art form which is now one of her hobbies too: taiko drumming. And last but not least, she has a family-shared pastime: to play video-games. Favorite console? Nintendo DS … by far.