Kalli has developed computational approaches that can transform limited biochemical and cryo-electron microscopy data into three-dimensional structures of RNA molecules and RNA-protein complexes during her PhD at Stanford University. She aims to improve our understanding of some important biological processes, such as chromosome maintenance and RNA splicing.
As a Schmidt Science Fellow, Kalli has moved to Dr. Aviv Regev’s lab at the Broad Institute and is co-advised by Dr. Feng Zhang. She plans to employ high-throughput cellular imaging, single-cell transcriptomics, and computational methods to characterize and develop predictive models of RNA and protein sub-cellular localization patterns and their relationships to cellular function. This work will help address the fundamental question of how RNA and protein sequences encode biological function and will improve our understanding of degenerative diseases.
Kalli is motivated by a desire to improve our understanding of fundamental biological processes and use that knowledge to develop effective therapeutic approaches to treat human diseases.