Soumya Rao

Soumya’s research focuses on using genomics technologies to gain actionable insights into biological questions using molecular biology, bioinformatics, and genomics. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Science (Biotechnology) in 2007 from Barkatullah University, and her master’s in science (Biotechnology) in 2009 from Bangalore University, India. Soumya qualified for the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) 2009 in India with an All India rank of 696, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – University Grants Commission National Eligibility Test (CSIR-UGC NET) in Dec 2008 for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and Lectureship. After a stint at the University of Hyderabad in plant virology research for two years, Soumya enrolled in Ph.D. program at the Center for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad & was awarded PhD degree from Manipal Academy for Higher Education (MAHE), Karnataka, India in June 2019.

During her Ph.D., Soumya generated a high-quality reference genome sequence and gene annotations for a fungal plant pathogen indigenous to India, which serves as an important resource for mycologists around the world. In Nov 2019, she joined the Cox Laboratory at UMKC as a postdoctoral fellow to study the genetics of craniofacial birth defects. Soumya is presently working with cohorts of patients, trios, and families, as well as mouse models of cleft lip/palate (CLP) and Oculo-Auriculo-Vertebral-spectrum (OAVS). Soumya is currently developing in-house and Cloud-based pipelines for the organization, analysis, and interpretation of genomic and transcriptomic data (short- and long-read whole genome sequence, RNAseq, and HiC), and producing optimized experimental protocols for the discovery of pathogenic variants and novel candidate genes causing craniofacial defects.