Education
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D), Quantitative Systems Biology, University of California Merced, 2016
Bachelor of Science (BS), Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California Merced, 2011
Biography
Cristal received her BS in Molecular and Cellular Biology (2011) and earned her Ph.D. in Quantitative Systems Biology (2016) from the University of California, Merced. During her undergraduate studies, she worked on characterizing a double-thumb phenotype in Sost(-/-);Sostdc1(-/-) mice. As a graduate student in Dr. Gabriela Loots' laboratory at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, Cristal's thesis was studying how to improve impaired fracture healing in type 1 diabetic mice using Sost antibody treatment. Cristal was awarded the Young Investigator Travel Grant by the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in 2015. In December 2016, Cristal joined Dr. Tamara Alliston's laboratory as an Associate Specialist. She investigates the role of TGFβ signaling in perilacunar remodeling.
Research Interests
• Bone remodeling
• Cellular mechanisms of bone maintenance and skeletal diseases
Contact: [email protected]