Hiro Ata

Hiro is a third year Emergency Medicine resident.  Prior to joining Duke, he completed his MD-PhD training at the Mayo Clinic with a focus on improving predictability and reliability of genome editing outcomes in vertebrates using tools such as CRISPR-Cas9.  Hiro's work has led to a better understanding of local triggers for robustly activating an understudied DNA repair pathway, MMEJ (Microhomology-Mediated End Joining), resulting in targeted induction of DNA sequence changes precise down to the single nucleotide level. As an EM resident, Hiro is interested in developing molecular diagnostic tools for ED-relevant pathologies, starting with bedside detection of bacteremia using CRISPR to better inform antibiotic stewardship, with an eye towards future adoption on to the D4 platform.