Julie Heck

Department/Affiliation: Biology
Phone: 330-287-1958
Office Address: 303C Mateer
Email: jheck@wooster.edu

Degrees

• B.A., The College of Wooster 1997
• Ph.D., Cornell University 2006

Courses Taught

• Gateway to Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Cell Physiology
  

Julie's I.S. research, mentored by Dr. Dean Fraga, focused on understanding the role of a Rac homolog in Paramecium. After college, she spent two years in the JET Program, teaching English in rural Japan. She then pursued her PhD in genetics at Cornell University (2006), before moving on to a postdoc in the Biochemistry Department at New York Medical College. Julie’s teaching interests are primarily in the molecular and cellular realm, although she also enjoyed teaching a Nutrition course recently.

Julie’s research interests center on understanding how genomes are replicated and maintained. Her work has been published in several journals including Genetics, PNAS, and Biochemical Pharmacology. Her recent work (which she hopes to continue here!) has focused on understanding the mechanism of replication of a viral RNA genome, that of the hepatitis C virus (HCV). She is interested in characterizing interactions between host cell and viral proteins that promote HCV genome replication.