Sinem Beyhan, PhD

Associate Professor

Sinem Beyhan is an associate professor working in the Infectious Disease group. She is also an adjunct professor at UC San Diego and San Diego State University.

Dr. Beyhan’s research focuses on microbe-host interactions. She is particularly interested in the discovery of anti-fungal molecules, elucidation of gene pathways in Burkholderia and discovery of anti-Burkholderia drugs, and fungal genome assembly and annotation. Prior to her appointment at JCVI, Dr. Beyhan was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded American Lung Association Senior Research Training Fellowship, American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship and NIH-NIAID Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00).

She received her PhD in Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her BS in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.

Research Priorities

Mapping genetic networks that control cell morphology and virulence in the fungal pathogen Histoplasma capsulatum

Identification and characterization of regulatory factors that control the parasitic yeast form of H. capsulatum
Identification and characterization of sensory proteins that are important for sensing and responding to host signals
Identification and characterization of H. capsulatum virulence factors

Characterization of the factors that contribute to environmental and intracellular survival of the bacterial pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei

Determining the molecular mechanism of biofilm formation in B. pseudomallei
Development of novel combination drug therapies to combat persistent B. pseudomallei infections

Characterization of the interactions between human gut microbiota and gut epithelial cells

Characterization of secreted factors of Bacteroides species for their roles in interacting with human gut epithelial cells

Publications

PLoS biology. 2023-03-21; 21.3: e3002060.

Retraction: Opposing signaling pathways regulate morphology in response to temperature in the fungal pathogen Histoplasma capsulatum

Rodriguez L, Voorhies M, Gilmore S, Beyhan S, Myint A, Sil A

PMID: 36944162

Biosensors & bioelectronics. 2023-02-15; 222.114986.

A novel biosensor for ultrasensitive detection of fungal genes

Rana M, Yilmaz T, Cohen S, Beyhan S, Argun AA

PMID: 36508932

Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland). 2022-08-16; 8.8:

Coccidioides Species: A Review of Basic Research: 2022

Kirkland TN, Stevens DA, Hung CY, Beyhan S, Taylor JW, Shubitz LF, Duttke SH, Heidari A, Johnson RH, Deresinski SC, Lauer A, Fierer J

PMID: 36012847

PLoS pathogens. 2022-04-06; 18.4: e1009832.

The WOPR family protein Ryp1 is a key regulator of gene expression, development, and virulence in the thermally dimorphic fungal pathogen Coccidioides posadasii

Mandel MA, Beyhan S, Voorhies M, Shubitz LF, Galgiani JN, Orbach MJ, Sil A

PMID: 35385558

mSystems. 2022-02-22; 7.1: e0140421.

Decoding Transcription Regulatory Mechanisms Associated with Coccidioides immitis Phase Transition Using Total RNA

Duttke SH, Beyhan S, Singh R, Neal S, Viriyakosol S, Fierer J, Kirkland TN, Stajich JE, Benner C, Carlin AF

PMID: 35076277

mBio. 2022-02-22; 13.1: e0257421.

Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly of a Human Fungal Pathogen Reveals Synteny among Geographically Distinct Species

Voorhies M, Cohen S, Shea TP, Petrus S, Muñoz JF, Poplawski S, Goldman WE, Michael TP, Cuomo CA, Sil A, Beyhan S

PMID: 35089059

Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland). 2021-05-07; 7.5:

Transcriptional Analysis of Coccidioides immitis Mycelia and Spherules by RNA Sequencing

Carlin AF, Beyhan S, Peña JF, Stajich JE, Viriyakosol S, Fierer J, Kirkland TN

PMID: 34067070

PLoS computational biology. 2021-03-29; 17.3: e1008857.

Predicting antimicrobial mechanism-of-action from transcriptomes: A generalizable explainable artificial intelligence approach

Espinoza JL, Dupont CL, O'Rourke A, Beyhan S, Morales P, Spoering A, Meyer KJ, Chan AP, Choi Y, Nierman WC, Lewis K, Nelson KE

PMID: 33780444

Microbial genomics. 2020-12-01; 6.12:

Genetic diversity of clinical and environmental Mucorales isolates obtained from an investigation of mucormycosis cases among solid organ transplant recipients

Nguyen MH, Kaul D, Muto C, Cheng SJ, Richter RA, Bruno VM, Liu G, Beyhan S, Sundermann AJ, Mounaud S, Pasculle AW, Nierman WC, Driscoll E, Cumbie R, Clancy CJ, Dupont CL

PMID: 33245689