Dr. Annie Ciernia
Assistant Professor University of British Columbia
Postdoctoral Researcher University of California, Davis
PhD University of California, Irvine
As the graduate students and postdocs at North Dakota State University flocked home for the holidays, Dr. Annie Ciernia began her yearly stint in the lab. While everyone was out of town, Annie, a young child, and her father, a research technician, would come into the lab to water, feed and check on the precious plants being studied in her father’s lab. Here, Annie learned about the scientific method, and making hypotheses. Although she has strayed from the plant world, she has held onto this early interest in science. Now, as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of British Columbia, she studies epigenetic regulation in the brain during development and in disease states.
Annie grew up on a farm in rural Minnesota, where there were few kids her own age to play with. However, the natural world abounded with interesting companions, and Annie took to collecting everything from bugs to small pieces of bone. Her inclination towards nature, and her early experience with her father studying plants, led to an interest in plant biology. When Annie began as an undergraduate biotechnology major at North Dakota State University, she immediately jumped into an undergraduate researcher position in a plant lab. However, she was tasked with weighing plant samples, a rather mundane task. She decided to switch to a new lab and secured a position in a cognitive neuroscience lab. The lab was quite small, so Annie learned analysis methods and planned experiments one-on-one with the PI. Inspired by this experience, Annie added a double major in psychology.
After finishing her degree, Annie wanted to learn more about the molecular biology she had been exposed to in her biotechnology degree, so she decided to work in a pathogenic microbiology lab for a few years. This experience cemented Annie's desire to follow a career in research. Ultimately, she chose to combine her interest in neuroscience with the interest in molecular biology she had developed and chose to pursue a PhD in Neurobiology at UC Irvine.
Annie found the perfect environment to combine these interests in the lab of Dr. Marcelo Wood. She studied how chromatin structure is remodeled during long term memory formation. Specifically, she focused on Baf53b, a neuron-specific chromatin remodeling subunit. Annie found that when Baf53b was mutated, there were impairments in long term memory and synaptic plasticity, but reintroduction of functional Baf53b was able to rescue these deficits. This was exciting, because genetic variants in this subunit and others within the same chromatin remodeling complex have been linked to intellectual disability and autism. Therefore, Annie’s research was one of the first steps towards determining if some impairments caused by these gene mutations could be reversible.
Hoping to continue to delve into the field of autism research, Annie applied for and received a fellowship to join the Autism Research Training Program for postdocs in autism research at UC Davis. This two-year program included classes and an introduction to translational and basic research in the study of autism. As part of the program, she joined the lab of Dr. Janine LaSalle to learn new bioinformatics approaches to studying epigenetics in autism. She also worked with Dr. Jacqueline Crawley, where she studied behavioral differences in mouse models of autism. Annie studied a mouse model of Rett Syndrome, a neurodevelopmental genetic condition characterized by changes in the gene MECP2 which causes a severe regression in motor and language skills. She characterized behavior across development in a new Mecp2 female mouse model and found that the model recapitulated the motor hallmarks of Rett syndrome earlier in development than previously thought.
When finishing up her postdoc, Annie applied to both industry and academic positions. She chose a position as Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia because of its supportive community and expertise in neuroscience, molecular biology, and epigenetics. Although her lab was shut down 6 months after it opened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the community at UBC provided support to the new investigators, and Annie and her team were able to make it through the lockdown.
Now, her lab is thriving. They study the changes in the epigenome of microglia in development and in several brain disorders and the influence of the early life microbiome on microglia. They transplant human microbiomes from individuals affected by different diseases and study how this disease-associated microbiome impacts microglia and behavior. They also study the same chromatin remodeling complex subunit Annie studied in her PhD (BAF53B) and how it impacts neuronal development, synapse formation and behavior.
While Annie’s role as a PI keeps her very busy, she still makes time to run through Vancouver’s many trails, getting her daily dose of the natural world that initially drew her to a career in science. Whether she is running through nature or working in her lab, Annie approaches life with a passion that will undoubtedly be passed down—not unlike the epigenome she studies—to the next generation of scientists.
Listen to Rianne’s full interview with Annie on February 21, 2024 below!
