Catherine Freudenreich, Ph.D.

Catherine Freudenreich, Ph.D., is an associate professor of biology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University. Using baker’s yeast as a model organism, Professor Freudenreich’s lab studies how genome instability contributes to human genetic disease. Her specialty is mutations in repetitive DNA, particularly trinucleotide repeat sequences which can expand (increase in number) and are responsible for a number of inherited diseases such as Huntington’s disease, Fragile X syndrome, and myotonic dystrophy. She also studies how breaks in chromosomes occur and the link to cancer-causing mutations such as deletions and rearrangements.

Professor Freudenreich can speak about:

• Molecular biology
• Genome stability
• Mutations in DNA