Ava Lorraine Altenbern, B.A.

Postbaccalaureate IRTA Fellow

Contact: For contact information, search the NIH Enterprise Directory.

Education:

B.A., Biochemistry and Art History, 2023, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

Portrait of Ava Lorraine Altenbern, B.A

Biography

Within the Batey lab at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Ava researched the modulation of genetic expression by the riboswitch, a regulatory structure that is found on the 5’ untranslated regions of bacterial mRNA. Utilizing a mutagenic cloning process, her research revealed preferences for base pairing in the expression platform of the B. subtilis pbuE Adenine-Responsive Riboswitch, and she received the highest honors award in biochemistry, summa cum laude, for her undergraduate thesis. Ava joined the SVBBU in August of 2023 and hopes to employ TIRF microscopy and single molecule biophysics to help understand the viral assembly mechanisms of mammalian orthoreovirus.