Nathan Kingston

Overall, my research interests lie in understanding biological mechanisms of disease to uncover potential for therapeutic intervention. I graduated from Brown University in 2015 with a Sc.B. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. While there, I worked in the laboratory of Dr. Patrycja Dubielecka-Szczerba, where we developed and characterized a novel genetic mouse model for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. After graduating from Brown, I started my PhD in the Program in Biomedical Sciences (PiBS) at Boston University, and I joined Dr. Bob Varelas’s lab in the Department of Biochemistry in the summer of 2016. In Dr. Varelas’s lab, I have undertaken many projects to study the role of the Hippo pathway in several disease contexts, including lung cancer, breast cancer, and melanoma, with my main focus being idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. I have developed mouse knockout models of Hippo pathway effector proteins, Taz and Yap, to study their effect on pulmonary fibrosis outcomes in different cell types.
During my time as a graduate student, I have been sponsored by the Pulmonary Center at Boston University School of Medicine through the NHLBI NRSA T32– Biology of the Lung training grant as well as an F31 Ruth L Kirschstein Fellowship from the NHLBI. Outside the lab, I have served on the executive board of the Biomedical PhD Student Organization (BPSO), first as treasurer, then as vice president. I have also served as a mentor from incoming PiBS students, mentored graduate and undergraduate students in the lab, and tutored for the Dental School. Beyond graduate school, I would like to continue studying disease modeling, with the long term career goal of becoming an independent researcher, either in an academic or industry setting.