Background
Dr. Pickett earned a B.S. in Microbiology from Brigham Young University in 2005, a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2010, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas in 2012. Before joining the BYU faculty in 2019, he worked at Thomson Reuters Life Sciences, Booz Allen Hamilton as a contractor at the National Institutes of Health, and as a principal investigator at the J. Craig Venter Institute.
Cancer Research
Our research group primarily focuses on how human cells respond during disease—whether caused by infectious pathogens, spontaneous mutations, or germline mutations. We mine publicly available datasets to identify differentially expressed genes, biological functions, and intracellular signaling pathways that are affected during disease. We then evaluate whether any of the genes can be useful as biomarkers for disease.
In the cancer space, we are working to:
1) Quantify transcriptional differences that are associated with a healthier lifestyle during breast cancer remission
2) Uncover underlying mechanisms associated with various blood cancers
3) Computationally predict TK1 protein interactors that could bind on the cell surface
4) Determine which genes are affected when TK1 is knocked down
5) Identify prognostic or diagnostic biomarkers to detect cancer earlier and more efficiently