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Karissa Sanbonmatsu: What Can Epigenetics Tell Us About Sex And Gender?

WHRO

Published May 8, 2020 at 9:15 AM EDT

Karissa Sanbonmatsu speaks at TEDWomen 2018. Photo: Marla Aufmuth

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Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Biology Of Sex

We're used to thinking of DNA as a rigid blueprint. Karissa Sanbonmatsu researches how our environment affects the way DNA expresses itself—especially when it comes to sex and gender.

About Karissa Sanbonmatsu

Karissa Sanbonmatsu is a principal investigator at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium, where she studiesthe mechanism of non-coding RNA systems, including ribosomes, riboswitches and long non-coding RNAs. She published some of the first structural studies of epigenetic long non-coding RNAs and is currently studying the mechanism of epigenetic effects involving chromatin architecture.

Sanbonmatsu is also on the board of Equality New Mexico and the Gender Identity Center and is an advocate for LGBTQ+ people in the sciences.

She has a PhD in Astrophysical Sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder.