Denver JnBaptiste

My lab is interested in RACK1-miRNA interactions. We study C. elegans genetics and use generative adversarial networks to predict RACK1-miRNA interactions upstream of the WAVE/SCAR complex (and downstream of GTPase).

Experimental Lab:
PTEN is mutated in various types of cancer inhibiting cell migration through integrin mediated signaling. Integrin connects the extracellular matrix to cell cytoskeletal element actin. Upstream of actin, CED10/Rac, a GTP protein regulates RACK1 and has been implicated in lamellipodia and filopodia formation that helps with cell migration and actin formation. RACK1 is, as a result also involved in cancer cell formation through migration and engulfment.

RACK1 is implicated with miRNAs where globally the regulation of RACK1 is positively correlated with these small RNAs.

Our lab studies the effects of daf18 on RACK1 and related partners including miRNAs (miR34, miR71) known to be involved in longevity, locomotion and cell migration, features of the actin pathway. The effects of these genes are elucidated through dietary conditions based on bacteria edited with CRISPR and gene silencing using RNAi.

Diet affects C. elegans growth and development, digestion, movement and mortality. We feed C. elegans a diet of S. aureus as opposed to the op50 E. coli diet that is optimal for development. Our results reveal slowed adult growth, this was complexed with increased death and dauer formation.

Since mortality and mobility was affected through altering C. elegans diet, we analyzed the effects of S. aureus on C. elegans gut, measuring intestines as the worms aged.
There is distension in C. elegans gut when fed with an S. aureus diet. Our data confirms that C. elegans gut increases in size when fed with S. aureus as the worms ages suggesting that development is altered as the worms are stressed through diet restrictions.

Because proper growth is shown to be suppressed and the worm’s gut was implicated in this altered growth, we continue to study gene expression under various induced stressful conditions.


Computational-Artificial Intelligence Lab
Using data collected from C. elegans experimental studies as input features, we apply generative adversarial networks (GANs) to model and predict growth, development, and gene expression patterns in C. elegans.

We focus on genes of interest including RACK1, daf-18, miR-34, and miR-71 and develop predictive models using machine learning approaches such as Random Forests and neural networks.

- Ph.D Committee Member, Stevens Institute of Technology (2023)

- Undergraduate Course Continuity Leader, Stevens Institute of Technology

-Judge for NAACP Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (2022)

-Tri Beta Biological Honor Society Keynote Speaker (2021)

-Judge for Metropolitan Association of College and University Biologists (MACUB) Conference (2020)

-Presentation: Denver Jn. Baptiste, Sushma Mannimala, Thejasvi Venkatachalam, Karla Larios and Martha Soto (2020)
The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) 2020
“Which GEF activates Rac1/CED-10 during epidermal morphogenesis?”

-Presentation: Denver Jn. Baptiste and Martha Soto “How cells move and molecules that help these cells move” (2020)
INSPIRE Teaching Presentation

- Assistant Professor- Biology Department (Saint Peter's University)

- Postdoctoral Fellow- Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (Molecular Genetics), Rutgers University

- Adjunct Instructor- (Biology Department) Chattanooga State University

- Just Julian Graduate Research Grant 2019
- American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) Travel Grant 2018
- Alliance for Graduate Education and Professoriate Fellowship 2016 (AGEP)
- American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) Travel Grant 2016

Physiology, Biotechnology, Cellular Molecular Biology,
Bioethics, Ecology and Evolution, General Biology