CV

Redacted web CV. Personal contact details removed.

Profile

Computational biologist focused on RNA sequence variation, RNA processing, and statistical genomics. Experienced in method development, RNA-seq analysis (bulk, single-cell, long-read), mentoring, and scientific software.

Experience

• Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology, UCLA (01/2022-Present)
  • Develop statistical and computational methods to study RNA nucleotide variants and RNA processing using high-throughput sequencing data.
• Collaboratory Fellow, Institute for Quantitative & Computational Biosciences (QCBio), UCLA (01/2022-Present)
  • Provide bioinformatics consulting, training, and workshop instruction for UCLA research groups.
• Part-time Scientific Consultant, Rattan Life Science (08/2025-09/2025)
  • Trained scientists on single-cell RNA-seq analysis workflows in R and AI-assisted approaches.
• Undergraduate Research Assistant, Lewin Lab, University of Florida (03/2014-05/2015)
  • Contributed to antioxidant gene therapy projects in retinal degeneration and related conference abstracts.

Education

• University of California, Los Angeles - Ph.D., Bioengineering (12/2021)
  • Dissertation: Function and Regulation of Nucleotide Variants in RNA
• University of Florida - B.S., Biological Engineering (05/2015)
  • Honors Program, Summa Cum Laude
  • Minor: Biomolecular Engineering

Selected Publications

• Quinones-Valdez G, Amoah K, Xiao X. Long-read RNA-seq demarcates cis- and trans-directed alternative RNA splicing. Nature Communications (2025).
• Hervoso JL, Amoah K, Dodson J, Choudhury M, Bhattacharya A, Quinones-Valdez G, et al. Splicing-specific transcriptome-wide association uncovers genetic mechanisms for schizophrenia. The American Journal of Human Genetics (2024).
• Zheng R, Dunlap M, Lyu J, Gonzalez-Figueroa C, Bobkov G, Harvey SE, et al. LINE-associated cryptic splicing induces dsRNA-mediated interferon response and tumor immunity. Molecular Cell (2024).
• Liu Z, Quinones-Valdez G, Fu T, Choudhury M, Reese F, Mortazavi A, Xiao X. L-GIREMI uncovers RNA editing sites in long-read RNA-seq. Genome Biology (2023).
• Quinones-Valdez G, Fu T, Chan WT, Xiao X. scAllele: a versatile tool for the detection and analysis of variants in scRNA-seq. Science Advances (2022).
• Quinones-Valdez G, Tran S, Jun HI, Bahn JH, Yang EW, Zhan L, et al. Regulation of RNA editing by RNA Binding Proteins in Human Cells. Communications Biology (2019).

See full list on Publications.

Articles Under Review

• Allele-specific alternative polyadenylation and noncoding variation in Alzheimer’s disease risk.
• Immune landscape of the affected brain in Rasmussen encephalitis.
• CryEx.v2 protocol for quantitative detection and visualization of cryptic splicing.
• Allele-specific splicing in human brain and links to Alzheimer’s disease risk.
• Developmentally regulated MLLT3 isoforms in human hematopoietic stem cell fate decisions.

Teaching and Mentoring

• Instructor, Unix Command Line workshop, QCBio UCLA (2026, quarterly)
• Instructor, Single Cell RNA-Seq Data Analysis with R workshop, QCBio UCLA (2022-2025, quarterly)
• Instructor, Bruins in Genomics (BIG) summer program, UCLA (2020, 2023, 2024)
• Guest Lecturer, Intro to High-Throughput Data Analysis, UCLA (2023-2024)
• Assistant Instructor, Concepts in Molecular Biosciences, UCLA (2024)
• Teaching Assistant, Molecular Parasitology, UCLA (2017)
• Ongoing mentorship of undergraduate and graduate trainees in computational genomics projects

Awards

• ASHG Trainee Research Excellence Award (11/2024)
• QCBio Collaboratory Postdoctoral Fellowship (2022-2025)
• Young Bolivian Abroad Award (2018)
• UCLA Bioengineering Supplementary Fellowship (2017)
• UCLA Bioengineering Research Fellowship (2016)
• Davis Scholarship for Undergraduate Education (2011-2015)

Research Talks (Highlights)

• Long-read RNA-seq demarcates cis- and trans-directed alternative RNA splicing
  • ASHG Featured Plenary Talk (2024)
  • ISCB Selected Talk (2023)
• scAllele for detection and analysis of variants in scRNA-seq
  • Open Box Science Invited Talk (2023)
  • ENCODE Consortium Retreat Talk (2022)

Journal Reviewer

• Genome Biology (2025-2026)
• BMC Genomics (2026)
• Genomics, Proteomics & Bioinformatics (2024)
• Communications Biology (2023)

Community Engagement and Service

• Diversity and Science Lectures (DASL), UCLA (2024)
• Reviewer, United World Colleges (UWC) Bolivian selection committee (2022-2024)
• UCLA Latino Alumni Association mentoring (2022-2023)
• Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars (2016-2017)
• eGSA, HOPES, SHPE (student organizations)

Skills

• Computational: RNA-seq analysis (bulk, scRNA-seq, long-read), Python, Bash, R, software packaging/distribution (PyPI, Apptainer, GitHub), machine learning in genomics, GCP, Linux/Unix/macOS/Windows.
• Laboratory: PCR, RNA/protein expression analysis, cell culture, OCT, electroretinogram.
• Languages: Spanish and English (native/bilingual), French and Italian (limited working proficiency).