Sawyer Randles
Graduate Student
Biological Sciences
Summary
Sawyer is a Ph.D. student in the Biological Sciences Graduate Program at UCSD. He received his B.S. in Biological Sciences from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo before working in the lab of Dr. Karl Deisseroth at Stanford University. There, he studied the physiological basis of emotion using novel optogenetic tools in mice. He then utilized his experience with AAV vectors to engineer a miRNA gene therapy for Angelman Syndrome at Encoded Therapeutics in South San Francisco.
As a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Gene Yeo and Dr. Eric Bennett, Sawyer studies how RNA and protein homeostasis is affected across neurodegenerative diseases to identify novel therapeutic targets.
Outside the lab, Sawyer enjoys cooking and outdoor activities (you name it, he’ll be there!).
Education
B.S., Biological Sciences, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Publications
Hsueh, B., Chen, R., Jo, Y .J., Tang, D., Raffiee, M., Kim, Y .S., Inoue, M., Randles, S., Ramakrishnan, C., Patel, S., Kim, D.K., Liu, T.X., Kim, S.H., Tan, L., Mortazavi, L., Cordero, A., Shi, J., Zhao, M., Ho, T.T., Crow, A., Yoo, A-C W., Raja, C., Evans, K., Bernstein, D., Zeineh, M., Goubran, M., Deisseroth, K. Cardiogenic control of affective behavioural state. Nature. 2023.
Fan, L.Z., Kim, D.K., Jennings, J.H., Tian, H., Wang, P., Ramakrishnan, C., Randles, S., Sun, Y ., Thadhani, E., Kim, Y .S., Quirin, S., Giocomo, L., Cohen, A.E., Deisseroth, K. All-optical physiology resolves a synaptic basis for behavioral timescale plasticity. Cell. 2023.