Rachel A. Hellmann (Whitaker)

Postdoctoral Researcher
(June 2009-August 2010)

Ph.D. Biochemistry, University of Illinois, 2009
M.S. Biochemistry, University of Illinois, 2005
B.S. Microbiology, University of Arizona, 2003

Current position: Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Coastal Carolina University

Email: rwhitake@coastal.edu

Brief Biography

Rachel Hellmann received her B.S. degree in microbiology from the University of Arizona in 2003. She joined the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a graduate student, earning the M.S. degree in 2005 and the Ph.D. degree in 2009. From June 2009 through August 2010 she was a postdoc at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working under the supervision of Prof. Scott K. Silverman. In January 2011 she began as Assistant Professor of Biology at Judson College, Marion, Alabama. She is currently Assistant Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry & Physics at Coastal Carolina University.

Research Interests

In my research in the Silverman lab, I worked to establish a deoxyribozyme-based approach to identify in vivo RNA-protein interactions. I also used in vitro selection to identify new deoxyribozymes for sequence-specific DNA cleavage.