Danylo Julian Villano

Previous Institution: University of Pennsylvania

Danylo grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he had the opportunity to pursue various research interests as disparate as evolutionary biology and clinical chemosensory dysfunction. After graduating in 2013 with a B.A. in biology, Danylo moved to New York, and for three years he was the research technician in Dr. Kenneth Offit’s Clinical Genetics Research Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. With Dr. Offit and his lab director, Dr. Vijai Joseph, Danylo conducted research on genetic predisposition to familial and sporadic cancers, typically using a combination of next-generation sequencing technologies and basic molecular genetics tools. He contributed to the discoveries of numerous novel cancer-susceptibility loci, through projects ranging from large-scale association studies in collaboration with international consortia, to smaller functional characterizations of candidate genes. Working in conjunction with bioinformaticians and post-docs, Danylo gained experience at MSK in both the bench and analytical ends of biomedical genetics research.

At Columbia, Danylo plans to expand upon his previous experience with molecular genetics, while shifting his focus to a more mechanistic level. His current research interests cover areas related to the maintenance and processing of genetic information, including the regulation of replication and transcription, DNA damage repair pathways and genomic integrity, and the roles of non-coding elements and epigenetic mechanisms in these processes. He would like to incorporate genomic-scope computational methods into his individual research, alongside molecular wet lab techniques. Following graduate school, he hopes to apply his knowledge to the better understanding of the genome’s role in human health.

In his free time, Danylo enjoys reading for pleasure, leisurely walks, and sports-following, among other things. He maintains a list of every movie he has ever seen (currently ~1,700).