Ph.D. in the biology of aging studying how neuropeptide signaling and autophagy regulate stress resilience and lifespan in C. elegans. Seeking biotech roles where this mechanistic depth, paired with strong experimental and computational skills, can drive translational research.
Builds training data and environments for frontier AI labs (YC-backed)
- Developed reinforcement learning task environments and grading rubrics for evaluating LLM agents on Fiji/ImageJ workflows; diagnosed agent errors and refined task design with client research team.
A frontier AI lab
- Applied biology expertise to evaluate frontier model performance on scientific reasoning tasks.
Buck Institute for Research on Aging & USC, Garrison Lab
Buck Institute: world's first independent research institute devoted exclusively to aging biology
USC: world's oldest & largest school of gerontology, home to the first Ph.D. in Gerontology
Dissertation: Cell Non-Autonomous Regulation of Aging and Stress Responses in C. elegans
- Discovered that the neuropeptide nematocin, an oxytocin/vasopressin homolog, suppresses the heat shock response in C. elegans. This is the first known endogenous inter-cellular signaling molecule identified with this function; first-author manuscript in preparation.
- Demonstrated tissue-specific, age-dependent regulation of autophagy and HSF-1 activation using fluorescent reporter strains, confocal microscopy (Zeiss LSM980 Airyscan), and image analysis pipelines (Imaris, ImageJ, CellProfiler).
- Built RNA-seq differential expression and pathway enrichment pipeline in R (STAR, DESeq2, clusterProfiler), identifying 42 genes with differential heat shock response, including ~2-fold upregulation of autophagy receptor gene sqst-1.
- Established lifespan, thermotolerance, and RNAi workflows using novel C. elegans strains; demonstrated autophagy-dependence via lgg-1 RNAi knockdown and Cox regression analysis.
- President (2024–2025) and Vice President (2023–2024) of the Buck Institute Multicultural Trainee Association, where I recruited and led a five-member team delivering professional development, institute-wide events, and STEM outreach to underrepresented Bay Area schools; hosted invited speakers Saul Villeda (UCSF) and Sonnet Davis (Denali Therapeutics).
UCSF, Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine, Brack Lab
One of the world's leading stem cell and regenerative medicine centers
- Isolated and characterized satellite cells from murine skeletal muscle to study age-associated changes in stem cell function; performed cryosectioning, immunostaining, and flow cytometry to evaluate lineage composition and regenerative potential.
Varian Medical Systems (now Siemens Healthineers)
- Designed and executed in vitro DNA damage and repair assays in mammalian cell lines and tissues.
Rodriguez A.T. et al. "Neuropeptide Regulation of the Heat Shock Response." Manuscript in preparation.
Wang W., Flury A.G., Rodriguez A.T. (co-first authors), Garrison J.L., Brem R.B. "A role for worm cutl-24 in background- and parent-of-origin-dependent ER stress resistance." BMC Genomics 23, 842 (2022). PMCID: PMC9764823.
Aging Biology Evaluation · lifespan.andrewtrodriguez.com
Built and deployed a 1,379-gene pipeline evaluating LLM reasoning about longevity genes. Integrated GenAge, NCBI Gene, and GO data; classified mechanisms against the López-Otín hallmarks of aging; validated automated grading against hand-scoring (Cohen’s κ = 0.79).