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 a novel role for neuropeptide signaling in regulating autophagy and stress resilience in C. elegans, forming the basis of a forthcoming first-author manuscript with therapeutic relevance.
- Co–first authored a study (PMCID: PMC9764823) establishing reciprocal hemizygosity sequencing (RH-seq) as a tool in C. elegans to dissect genetic variation in stress responses, identifying cutl-24 as required for maternal ER-stress resistance.
- Established lifespan, thermotolerance, and RNAi workflows using novel C. elegans strains.
- Demonstrated tissue-specific, age-dependent regulation of autophagy and HSF-1 activation using fluorescent reporter strains, super-resolution confocal microscopy (Zeiss LSM980 Airyscan), and image-analysis pipelines (Imaris, Fiji/ImageJ, CellProfiler).
- Linked neuronal signaling, proteostasis, and autophagy using systems-level approaches to explain mechanisms underlying organismal longevity.
- Integrated molecular genetics, quantitative imaging, and RNA-seq to characterize transcriptional and physiological responses to hormetic stress across tissues.
- Identified stress-response pathway nodes as potential intervention points for improving cellular and tissue resilience.
- Served as President of the Multicultural Trainee Association (MTA), building mentorship, professional development, and community programs led by Buck Institute trainees.
- Trained and supervised junior researchers in experimental methods, data analysis, and figure preparation.
- Presented findings in seminars and poster sessions for interdisciplinary audiences at USC and the Buck Institute.
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).