Email: castillo.cm@tamu.edu

B.Sc. Microbiology - Minor in Chemistry, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota D.C., Colombia (2005) M.Sc. Microbiology, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá D.C., Colombia (2007) Research Assistant, Universidad de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (2009) Ph.D. Biochemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA (2017) Post Doctoral Research Associate, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA (present)

Research Interests: Of the features that define a living organism, resilience is perhaps my favorite. I am deeply interested in the crosstalk of regulatory networks and chromatin modification, as means to inherit adaptive environmental information. Telomeres are the terminal structures of eukaryotic linear chromosomes, essential for maintaining genetic stability and widely regarded as the key to cell immortality. Protection of Telomeres 1(POT1) is a fundamental component of the telomere sheltering complex in mammals, whose role is to prevent the targeting of chromosome ends by the DNA repair pathway, and to modulate telomerase activity. Arabidopsis thaliana encodes three paralogs of the POT1 gene. While POT1a functions as mammalian POT1, the roles of POT1b and POT1c remain elusive. Previous work from our lab showed that POT1b acts as a negative regulator of telomerase activity, but its effect on telomere length is negligible in vivo. Loss-of-function pot1b mutants display a worsening phenotype after multiple generations, consisting of delayed development, decreased fitness, and hypersensitivity to DNA damage. We hypothesize that duplication of the POT1 gene in Arabidopsis has enabled the acquisition of specialized, non-canonical functions in POT1b. My research goal is to understand the roles of POT1b through the identification and characterization of its macromolecular complexes upon environmental stimuli.