Biographical Information

Justin completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at Youngstown State University in 2015. He earned his Ph.D. in Dr. Marlene Belfort’s lab at the University at Albany, SUNY, in 2021, where he developed a passion for retrotransposons while studying group II intron retrotransposition in their native hosts.

In the spring of 2021, Justin joined the Laederach lab as a postdoctoral researcher, where his fascination with retrotransposons, particularly Alu elements, spread throughout the group. His current research focuses on characterizing the long-range RNA structural interactions of Alu elements required for the formation of circular RNA.

Outside the lab, Justin enjoys reading, playing a wide variety of games, watching and playing soccer, and hiking and kayaking with his dogs.

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinwaldern/

Publications:

Chaubal A, Waldern JM, Taylor C, Laederach A, Marzluff WF, and Duronio RJ. 2023. Coordinated expression of replication-dependent histon genes from multiple loci promotes histone homeostasis in Drosophila. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 34(12), ar118. https://doi.org/10.1091/mbc.E22-11-0532

Kumar J, Lackey L, Waldern JM, Dey A, Mustoe AM, Weeks K, Matthews DH, and Laederach A. 2022. Quantitative prediction of variant effects on alternative splicing in MAPT using endogenous pre-messenger RNA structure probing. eLife 11:e73888. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73888

Redmon IC, Ardizzone M, Hekimoglu H, Hatfield BM, Waldern JM, Dey A, Montgomery SA, Laederach A, and Ramos SBV. 2022. Sequence and tissue targeting specificity of ZFP36L2 reveals Elavl2 as a novel target with co-regulation potential. Nucleic Acids Research, 50(7), 4068-4082. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkac209

Waldern JM, Kumar J and Laederach A. 2021. Disease-associated human genetic variation through the lens of precursor and mature RNA structure. Human Genetics, 0123456789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00439-021-02395-9

Waldern JM, Smith D, Piazza CL, Bailey EJ, Schiraldi NJ, Nemati R, Fabris D, Belfort M, and Novikova O. 2021. Methylation of rRNA as a host defense against rampant group II intron retrotransposition. Mobile DNA, 12(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13100-021-00237-z

Waldern J, Schiraldi NJ, Belfort M, and Novikova O. 2020. Bacterial group II intron genomic neighborhoods reflect survival strategies: Hiding and hijacking. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 37(7), 1942–1948. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaa055