I am an 80% wet lab, 20% dry lab molecular biologist who enjoys developing models and tools to dissect biology (currently, interrogating the form and function of fusion genes to combat cancer).
Wet Lab
My experimental research focuses on modeling oncogenic fusion genes to understand how the behavior and functional domains contributed by individual partner genes contributes to the overall activity of the fusion.
I find fusion genes, particularly transcription factor fusions, exceptionally interesting since they often are the defining genetic feature of the tumors they drive. The relative mutational “quietness” of these cancers, compared to non-fusion driven diseases, makes them much cleaner to model and dissect. As a PhD candidate in Ross Okimoto’s lab at UCSF, I’m currently exploring the biology of fusions involving the transcriptional repressor Capicua.
My favorite wet lab technique is cloning (the creativity is addictive), while one of my ever-present side projects is to be a better fluorescent microscopist (see: photography as a hobby).
Dry Lab
I strongly believe in researchers being fluent in both generating data and processing it. To this end, I mainly use R and bash scripting to work with anything from IHC staining scores to raw NGS data.
I’ve used or taken classes in IDL, Java, Python, R, and bash scripting, including a fully computational rotation in the lab of Dr. Marina Sirota in my first year at UCSF. In the fall of 2022 I was exceptionally fortunate to take the Advanced Sequencing Technologies & Bioinformatics Analysis course at CSHL, which helped to train me in full-pipeline processing of NGS data. I am the acting bioinformatician for the Okimoto lab, and I help not just our own lab members but also collaborators with data analysis.
My favorite R functions are pivot_longer and pivot_wider (from tidyr, they always seem like magic), while my least favorite kind of bioinformatic data analysis is gene ontology analysis (I rarely find it informative & would rather just read the gene list manually).
Selected References by Main Type of Contribution
Mainly Wet Lab
- Popescu, B., Stahlhut, C., Tarver, T. C., Wishner, S., Lee, B. J., Peretz, C. A. C., Luck, C., … and Smith, C. C. (2023). Allosteric SHP2 inhibition increases apoptotic dependency on BCL2 and synergizes with venetoclax in FLT3- and KIT-mutant AML. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(11), 101290. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2023.101290
Both
- Luck, C., Jacobs, K. A., and Okimoto, R. A. (2024).
The Capicua C1 Domain Is Required for Full Activity of the CIC::DUX4 Fusion Oncoprotein. Cancer Research Communications. doi: 10.1158/2767-9764.CRC-24-0348
Preprint
- Luck, C., Jacobs, K.A., Riad, J., Macaraig, C. D., Ponce, R. K. M., and Okimoto, R. A. (2025). First Generation Tools for the Modeling of Capicua (CIC) – Family Fusion Oncoprotein-Driven Cancers. bioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2025.05.13.653825
Mainly Dry Lab
- Schott, C. R., Koehne, A. L., Sayles, L. C., Young, E. P., Luck, C., … and Sweet-Cordero, E. A. (2024). Osteosarcoma PDX-Derived Cell Line Models for Preclinical Drug Evaluation Demonstrate Metastasis Inhibition by Dinaciclib through a Genome-Targeted Approach. Clinical Cancer Research, 30 (4): 849-864. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-23-0873
- Kim, J. W., Luck, C., Wu, W., Ponce, R. P., Lin, Y. K., Gupta, N., and Okimoto, R. A. (2022). Capicua suppresses YAP1 to limit tumorigenesis and maintain drug sensitivity in human cancer. Cell Reports, 41(1), 111443. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111443
Preprint
- Thomas, N. J.*, Luck, C.*, Shlimon, N., Ponce, R. P., Kosibaty, Z., and Okimoto, R. A. (2023). Mapping chromatin state and transcriptional response in CIC-DUX4 undifferentiated round cell sarcoma. bioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2023.10.11.561932 (* indicates co-first authors)
See my ORCID page for a more complete list of publications – currently 9 unique entries as of May 2025 (some projects appear multiple times as both preprints and published manuscripts).
