Nicole Sexton

Nicole joined the lab in November of 2017 to investigate the effects of genetic determinants in Flavivirus on viral population dynamics and multi-species transmission. She earned her AS from Santa Rosa Junior College and her BS from the University of California, Santa Cruz. While an undergraduate, she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Graham Simmons at the Blood Systems Research Institute on projects investigating mechanisms of ebola and chikungunya virus cell entry and characterizing chikungunya antibodies. Nicole earned her PhD from Vanderbilt University working in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Denison, where her work focused on understanding how coronaviruses regulate the faithful replication of exceptionally large RNA genomes. Her current work focuses on how Flaviviruses encode for genomes that remain infectious across passage between diverse hosts and what viral genetic determinants contribute to differential outcomes between emergent strains.