“My name is Sydney Brooksby. I’m a fifth-year student at the University of Utah studying genomics and genetic engineering and biology.
My research is based on a disease I have called Turner Syndrome, and Turner Syndrome is a severe chromosomal disorder caused by the complete or mosaic loss of the X chromosome. So, you have a bunch of biological issues that follow that absence of that chromosome. This mutation occurs in one out of 2,500 females, and 99% of these patients don’t make it until birth, actually.
I really started to get into the word incurable in high school because I didn’t know what it meant for my next steps of life, including college. With the U, having the genomics major, it made it very easy to explore those unknowns of my condition.
I learned about undergraduate research when I was first admitted to the U as a freshman. I was accepted into the Science Research Initiative and that program is when they place you in a classroom for one semester to learn about scientific inquiry, research theory and what it means to be a scientist.
And during the second semester, you compete for a stream, which is a lab placement to explore a science field of your choosing. My stream was the cancer biology stream up at Huntsman Cancer Institute with Sheri Holmen. I studied metastatic melanoma in mouse models, and it was more of a genetic engineering lab that allowed me to understand the complexities and repair mechanisms of DNA and cancer alike.
I joined three different research labs after that and I couldn’t stop.
My proposal explores a curative strategy that combines the CRISPR-Cas9 system, homology-directed repair, and transient mRNA delivery to restore SHOXa gene expression, first in human stem cells, then in mouse models. To get there, I’ve outlined specific aims to achieve genomic correction, cellular phenotypic rescue, and ultimately a scalable platform for treating chromosomal deletion disorders beyond TS.
I usually describe it as I copy and paste DNA, I fix it, I alternate it, I play around with it to create something really, truly beautiful and not perfect, but something that works well to give people the quality of life that they can hopefully achieve.
Undergraduate research has been everything to me. It’s allowed me to think systematically while also bringing about peace with my condition and bringing about hope that incurable is not a stopping point for us, but a challenge to overcome and to chase towards.
After graduation, I hope to apply to med school. I would love to stay at the University of Utah if I can. They have an amazing genomics program and very cutting-edge research up here that I think would very much benefit me as a patient and as a future provider.
Whenever I wake up in the morning, I always tell myself, ‘Sometimes you have to be crazy to make things seem not as crazy, but possible.‘”
— Sydney Brooksby, 2026 Research on Capitol Hill presenter
