Dr. Charis L. Himeda, PhD

I am a Research Associate Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine. 

I have worked in the fields of myogenesis and muscle disease since 1998. In the early stages of my career, I identified novel transcriptional regulators of muscle genes and helped design improved AAV regulatory cassettes which have been widely used in studies of muscle gene therapy. More recently, I’ve identified novel drug targets in FSHD and the enhancers that regulate DUX4 gene expression in FSHD myocytes. 

I have also developed the CRISPR inhibition approach for FSHD, designing an FSHD-optimized regulatory cassette and engineering novel therapeutic cassettes that epigenetically repress DUX4 in FSHD myocytes. For my CRISPR work, I received the inaugural FSH Society Young Investigator award in 2016, and have been interviewed by The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Boston Business Journal, and FSH Society Talk Radio. 

At night I doff my lab gloves to pen speculative fiction about quirky renegade scientists uncovering the ultimate mysteries that lie within the human genome.