Shahnaz Masani
Assistant Professor of Biology and Inclusion in STEM | Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, UNITED STATES
Shahnaz Masani studies factors that increase equity, inclusion, and learning in undergraduate STEM classrooms.
Media
Publications:
Documents:
Photos:
Videos:
Audio/Podcasts:
Biography
Shahnaz Masani is an Academic Specialist in Biology at Lyman Briggs College. She has taught several courses at Michigan State University, including Introductory Organismal Biology, Introductory Cell and Molecular Biology, Eukaryotic Cell Biology and a Senior Seminar Course on Genome Editing. Shahnaz is currently a co-mentor in the Lyman Briggs Scholarship of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning (SUTL) program and is studying the impact of individual and group-based assessment corrections on learning. She is also a Hub Faculty Fellow, where she is collaborating with other faculty to create lecture videos for introductory biology.
Industry Expertise (1)
Education/Learning
Education (3)
Michigan State University: Ph.D., Genetics
University of Pune: M.Sc, Zoology
St. Xavier’s College: B.S., Life Sciences
Links (2)
Journal Articles (3)
Redundant function of DNA ligase 1 and 3 in alternative end-joining during immunoglobulin class switch recombination
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences2016 Nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) is the major DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair pathway in mammals and resolves the DSBs generated during both V(D)J recombination in developing lymphocytes and class switch recombination (CSR) in antigen-stimulated B cells. In contrast to the absolute requirement for NHEJ to resolve DSBs associated with V(D)J recombination, DSBs associated with CSR can be resolved in NHEJ-deficient cells (albeit at a reduced level) by a poorly defined alternative end-joining (A-EJ) pathway.
DNA ligase I is not essential for mammalian cell viability
Cell Reports2014 Of the three DNA ligases present in all vertebrates, DNA ligase I (Lig1) has been considered essential for ligating Okazaki fragments during DNA replication and thereby essential for cell viability. Here, we report the striking finding that a Lig1-null murine B cell line is viable. Surprisingly, the Lig1-null cells exhibit normal proliferation and normal immunoglobulin heavy chain class switch recombination and are not hypersensitive to a wide variety of DNA damaging agents.
