Shahnaz Masani

Assistant Professor of Biology and Inclusion in STEM Michigan State University

  • East Lansing MI

Shahnaz Masani studies factors that increase equity, inclusion, and learning in undergraduate STEM classrooms.

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Michigan State University

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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

Education/Learning

Education

Michigan State University

Ph.D.

Genetics

University of Pune

M.Sc

Zoology

St. Xavier’s College

B.S.

Life Sciences

Journal Articles

Ditch gendered terminology for cell division

Nature

2021

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Redundant function of DNA ligase 1 and 3 in alternative end-joining during immunoglobulin class switch recombination

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

2016

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.

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DNA ligase I is not essential for mammalian cell viability

Cell Reports

2014

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.

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