Elijah J. Spina
5085 Rhoads Ave. Apt C, Goleta Ca, 93111
spina@lifesci.ucsb.edu; (347) 385-3275
Education
 University of California, Santa Barbara (09/2011 – Present)
 PhD, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
 State University of New York College at Oneonta (08/2007 – 12/2009)
 B.S. Biological Sciences, minor in Chemistry
 Magna Cum Laude
 Honors in Biology
 Suffolk County Community College (08/2005 – 05/2007)
Publications
 Bennett, Jacqueline S., Kaitlyn L. Charles, Matthew R. Miner, Caitlin F. Heuberger, Elijah
J. Spina, Michael F. Bartels, and Taylor Foreman. "Ethyl lactate as a tunable solvent for the
synthesis of aryl aldimines." Green Chemistry 11 (2009): 166-68.
Awards
 NIGMS; UC Irvine, CCBS, NSCSB 2014 Graduate Student Fellowship
 UCSB, MCDB/Amgen Teaching-Research Fellowship (09/2011 – 07/2012)
 SUNY Oneonta Fall 2008 Student Grant for Research and Creative Activity. “Green
Synthesis of ß–lactam Antibiotic Analogs” Caitlin F. Heuberger & Elijah J. Spina.
Poster Presentations
 E. Spina, O. Guedelhoefer IV, W. Smith, “Regeneration in Ciona intestinalis” (2013
MCDB Symposium)
 E. Spina, C. Heuberger, M. Presky, J. Rodriguez, J. Bennett, “Green Synthesis of ß–lactam
Antibiotic Analogs” (2009 SUNY Oneonta Student Research Day)
 E. Spina & J. Bennett, “Green Synthesis of Aryl Imines” (2008 SUNY Oneonta Student
Research Day)
Work Experience
 Teaching Assistant, UCSB Dept. of MCD Biology
 Developmental Biology, Dr. Kathy Foltz
 Biochemistry, Dr. Zachary Ruhe
 MCDB Research Progress, Dr. Carol Vandenberg
 Introductory Biology, Dr. Douglas Bush
 Laboratory technician, Columbia University Medical Center (10/2010 – 06/2011)
 Performed technical work for clinical trials in bone pathology: human serum,
plasma & peripheral blood cell isolation, primary cell culture, FACS
 Supervisor: Dr. John Manavalan
 Junior medical consultant, New Hope Fertility Center (05/2010 – 07/2010)
 Embryo transfer cycle outcome reporting to SART and CDC
 Supervisor : Dr. John Zhang
Undergraduate Research
 Internship as laboratory assistant; Columbia University Medical Center, Dept. of
Endocrinology, Dr. John Manavalan (05/2009 – 08/2009, 01/2010 – 09/2010)
 Receive & process whole blood samples, maintain sample bank
 Independent study: Cloning a putative fatty acid transport gene in C. crescentus; SUNY
Oneonta, Dept. of Biology, Dr. Fred Zalatan (09/2009 – 12/2009)
 Independent study: Green chemistry research group; SUNY Oneonta, Dept. of Chemistry
& Biochemistry, Dr. Jacqueline Bennett (03/2008 – 12/2009)
 Organic synthesis, photochemistry, chemical analysis, experiment design
Volunteerism and Outreach
 Santa Barbara County Science Fair - MCDB “It’s a Small World” Exhibit (3/9/12)
 Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History – “Nano Days” Exhibit (4/15/12)
 Mentored UCSB CAMP undergraduate diversity scholarship student (04/2013 - Present)
 Hosted group laboratory tours at UCSB for local high school students - (06/13)
Technical Skill Summary
 Nucleic acid manipulation and analysis (purification, cloning, qPCR)
 RNA sequencing (library preparation, read mapping, DE analysis)
 Bioinformatics, data mining, statistics, co-expression network inference
 Fluorescence microscopy, confocal, immunostaining, quantitative image analysis
 Cell separations (FACS, Ficoll:Paque density centrifugation, magnetic bead sorting)
 Protein characterization (PAGE, western blot, ELISA, column chromatography)
 Embryo manipulation; tunicate dechorination & electroporation
 Bacterial culture (growth, selection, transformation, competency induction)
 Mammalian cell culture and viral transfection
 C. elegans husbandry, RNAi screening
 Mouse husbandry, tail-injections, marrow harvesting & primary cell culture
 NMR spectroscopy: small organic molecule identification (JEOL ECX-300 & Delta)
 FT-IR spectroscopy (Varian spectrometer and Resolutions software)
**References available upon request.