Norma Iris Rodriguez Malave

Norma is a PhD candidate in the Cellular and Molecular Pathology Program at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). She has a B.S. in Industrial Biotechnology from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez (UPRM) where she was a MARC scholar, and had the opportunity to attend ABRCMS, a national minority research conference. Additionally, she carried out graduate studies in Molecular Population Genetics in the Oleksyk-Cruzado Lab at UPRM.

Her current research at the Rao Lab focuseson understanding the role of non-coding RNAs in humanpre-B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. For this, she is using a combination of cell line models, lentiviral expression systems, mouse models, andanalysis of primary human tumor samples. She hopes towork asan independent investigator in cancer research, and tobecome an educator in the future.

Norma completed her Ph.D. and is now pursuing post-doctoral studies in computational biology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.