Nick Latina

Nick Latina

PhD student

Case Western Reserve University

Department of Genetics & Genome Sciences

I grew up in Kent, OH. While pursuing my undergrad degree at The Ohio State University, I was given the opportunity to shadow in a lab here at Case. This molecular biology lab introduced me to cancer research, and the wet lab environment. My interest was piqued, and I spent the next two summers completing cancer research internships at the Mayo Clinic and at Case, where I am currently pursuing my PhD in Genetics & Genome Sciences. Early on in my graduate work, I realized that I loved learning about physical laws of nature, and anchoring what I was learning in biology to these fundamental laws. In the Cancer Evolution group, I am using computational evolutionary and ecological modeling to test how abundant ecological interactions between cancer cells affects tumor heterogeneity and drug resistance. This work is in close collaboration with the lab of Jacob Scott, MD, DPhil (in particular Steph Owen, PhD and Jeff Maltas, PhD.)

Education

  • B.S. in Molecular Genetics, 2020

    The Ohio State University