Alexis LaRosa

Alexis is an MD/PhD student originally from Long Beach, Mississippi. She received her BS in Cellular and Molecular Biology from Tulane University in 2023. During her time at Tulane, Alexis was a member of the Belancio lab, where she studied the relationship between LINE-1 transposon expression and exposure to light at night. Alexis joined the San Roman lab in January of 2026 and is interested in mechanisms behind sex biases in health and disease, particularly in exploring the role of the non-coding genome in sex chromosome aneuploidies. Clinically, Alexis is interested in rheumatology and the underlying differences in males and females in autoimmune diseases.

Current Duke Appointments & Affiliations

Student Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Basic Science Departments

Recent Scholarly Works

SCIFER: approach for analysis of LINE-1 mRNA expression in single cells at a single locus resolution.

Journal article Mobile DNA · August 2022 BackgroundEndogenous expression of L1 mRNA is the first step in an L1-initiated mutagenesis event. However, the contribution of individual cell types to patterns of organ-specific L1 mRNA expression remains poorly understood, especially at single- ... Full text Cite

Organ-, sex- and age-dependent patterns of endogenous L1 mRNA expression at a single locus resolution.

Journal article Nucleic acids research · June 2021 Expression of L1 mRNA, the first step in the L1 copy-and-paste amplification cycle, is a prerequisite for L1-associated genomic instability. We used a reported stringent bioinformatics method to parse L1 mRNA transcripts and measure the level of L1 mRNA ex ... Full text Cite

View All Scholarly Works