Anna Lehmann

My research in the Heitman Lab focuses broadly on understanding how gene expression is regulated in the human pathogenic fungi Aspergillus fumigatus and Cryptococcus neoformans. In A. fumigatus, I am looking at how unstable ploidy changes can dynamically rewire the transcriptome in response to antifungal compounds and drive transient multidrug resistance. My work in C. neoformans is investigating the roles of novel long non-coding RNAs in temporally controlling gene expression during a-alpha sexual reproduction, a process that leads to the production of infectious spores. I am using next-generation sequencing techniques, including Illumina DNA and RNA-seq and Nanopore direct RNA-seq, and molecular genetics to explore these questions.

I received my B.A. with High Honors in Biology from Dartmouth College in 2023 and joined the Molecular Genetics and Microbiology program at Duke that same year. At Dartmouth, I completed an undergraduate research thesis in the lab of Dr. Robert Cramer focused on characterizing genes involved in the biofilm-specific hypoxia response in A. fumigatus.