Biographical Information:

Scott first met Alain while conducting his dissertation in the Fox lab at Duke University, where his pioneering work in Drosophila highlighted the importance of codon usage bias in determining the tissue-specificity of gene expression. After collaborating with Alain’s lab to generate a new metric for measuring tissue-specific codon usage bias, Scott pursued a postdoctoral fellowship with Alain to explore other aspects of RNA sequences that regulate gene expression – namely RNA structure. His current projects focus on identifying and characterizing functional tertiary structures in human mRNAs and viral genomes.

Outside of the lab Scott enjoys cooking, eating, wildlife photography, eating, and dabbles in a variety of hobbies such as pottery, wood working, playing guitar, restoring old cast iron pots and pans, making kombucha, eating, and tending to his yard and chickens. At one point he had over 30 freshwater aquariums in his garage where he imported, bred, and distributed exotic aquarium fish to aquatic enthusiasts in the local area.

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-r-allen-3a700b63/

Publications:

Allen SR, Stewart RK, Rogers M, Ruiz IJ, Cohen E, Laederach A, Counter CM, Sawyer JK, Fox DT. Distinct responses to rare codons in select Drosophila tissues. Elife. 2022 May 6;11:e76893. doi: 10.7554/eLife.76893. PMID: 35522036; PMCID: PMC9116940.

Sawyer JK, Kabiri Z, Montague RA, Allen SR, Stewart R, Paramore SV, Cohen E, Zaribafzadeh H, Counter CM, Fox DT. Exploiting codon usage identifies intensity-specific modifiers of Ras/MAPK signaling in vivo. PLoS Genet. 2020 Dec 9;16(12):e1009228. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009228. PMID: 33296356; PMCID: PMC7752094.

Hanslik KL, Allen SR, Harkenrider TL, Fogerson SM, Guadarrama E, Morgan JR. Regenerative capacity in the lamprey spinal cord is not altered after a repeated transection. PLoS One. 2019 Jan 30;14(1):e0204193. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204193. PMID: 30699109; PMCID: PMC6353069.

Cohen E, Allen SR, Sawyer JK, Fox DT. Fizzy-Related dictates A cell cycle switch during organ repair and tissue growth responses in the Drosophila hindgut. Elife. 2018 Aug 17;7:e38327. doi: 10.7554/eLife.38327. PMID: 30117808; PMCID: PMC6130973.

Fogerson SM, van Brummen AJ, Busch DJ, Allen SR, Roychaudhuri R, Banks SM, Klärner FG, Schrader T, Bitan G, Morgan JR. Reducing synuclein accumulation improves neuronal survival after spinal cord injury. Exp Neurol. 2016 Apr;278:105-15. doi: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2016.02.004. Epub 2016 Feb 13. PMID: 26854933; PMCID: PMC4788542.