Lauren Ezzell

Lauren Ezzell has always wanted to use her passion for science in a clinically impactful way. She believes pursuing a PhD at St. Jude will allow her to make a difference in the lives of children with cancer through fundamental scientific discovery.

Lauren earned her BS in biological sciences in 2020 from Mississippi State University. There, she studied agriculture genomics at the Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology where she worked on characterizing effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms in L. rohita species on aquaculture. After graduating college, Lauren spent 2 years at Vanderbilt University Medical Center working in the lab of Natasha Halasa studying respiratory disease in pediatric and specialized populations to identify strategies to reduce disease burden. She hopes to use her background in genomics and clinical research to study hematopoietic malignancies at St. Jude.  

Hometown: Athens, AL

Publications

Arick MA, Grover CE, Hsu CY, Magbanua Z, Pechanova O, Miller ER, Thrash A, Youngblood RC, Ezzell L, Alam MS, Benzie JAH, Hamilton MG, Karsi A, Lawrence ML, Peterson DG. A high-quality chromosome-level genome assembly of rohu carp, Labeo rohita, and its utilization in SNP-based exploration of gene flow and sex determination. G3 (Bethesda). 2023 Mar 9;13(3):jkad009. doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkad009. PMID: 36639248; PMCID: PMC9997561. 

Yanis A, Haddadin Z, Spieker AJ, Waqfi D, Rankin DA, Talj R, Thomas L, Birdwell KA, Ezzell L, Blair M, Eason J, Varjabedian R, Warren CM, Nochowicz CH, Olson EC, Simmons JD, Yoder S, Guy M, Thomsen I, Chappell JD, Kalams SA, Halasa NB. Humoral and cellular immune responses to the SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 vaccine among a cohort of solid organ transplant recipients and healthy controls. Transpl Infect Dis. 2022 Feb;24(1):e13772. doi: 10.1111/tid.13772. Epub 2021 Dec 21. PMID: 34905653.