YashoNandini Singh

Alumna Success Story: YashoNandini Singh

June, 2022

The future is bright for Schmidt College of Science students! FAU provided recent graduate YashoNandini Singh, Chemistry Ph.D. ‘22, the research foundation she needed to land an amazing position as an applications scientist (bio-consumables) at Agilent Technologies, Inc., in Folsom, CA.

Prior to her May 2022 graduation, Singh was honored with the 2022 Dean Perry College of Science Graduate Scholarship award.

“I feel so grateful and humbled for being awarded this prestigious scholarship,” Singh said. “It has motivated me to continue my passion for research and the pursuit of science.”

In the last two years, Singh had five papers published in high-profile journals, which is quite an accomplishment. Three of her papers were related to cancer research, and two of them involved Alzheimer’s disease research. However, they all used glycopeptide models as a tool to target unique protein glycosylation patterns responsible for disease progression.

“It’s always a good feeling to publish the data and story that you are trying to build with each of your research projects in a peer-reviewed journal,” Singh explained. “They are all accomplishments and titles to my belt, and have so far been extremely valuable to advancing my career.”

In 2018, Singh received her Master of Science in Chemistry degree from FAU. Singh said that she credits the Director of the Honors Chemistry Program and Associate Professor Mare Cudic, Ph.D., for providing lasting mentorship and guidance with her research.

“I think it's safe to say that Dr. Cudic was my academic parent and will be my mentor for life,” she said. “None of the work in the publications would be possible without her guidance, and I am truly grateful for having her mentorship through every step of my Ph.D. journey.”

In Singh’s new role, she is charged with: developing comprehensive customer applications across Agilent instrumentation and design experiments to support these applications; supporting the development of customer-centric documentation and other user guides, and supporting the field and sales teams with operations use cases.

Her advice to current FAU students is to “keep an open mind and think outside the box.”

Cancer Publications:

  1. Y. Singh , M. C. Rodriguez Benavente, M. Alhuniti, D. Beckwith, R. Ayyalasomayajula, E. Patino, W. S. Miranda, A. Wade, and M. Cudic (2020) “Positional Scanning MUC1 Glycopeptide Library Reveals Importance of PDTR Epitope Glycosylation for Lectin Binding.” Journal of Organic Chemistry, published in Modern Peptide and Protein Issue.
  2. F. FitzGerald, M. C. Rodriguez Benavente, C. Garcia, Y. Rivero, Y. Singh, H. Wang, G. B. Fields, and M. Cudic (2020) “TF-Containing MUC1 Glycopeptides Fail toEntice Galectin-1 Recognition of Tumor-associated Thomsen-Freidenreich (TF) Antigen (CD176) in Solution.” Glycoconjugate Journal.
  3. Y. Singh , P. Cudic, and M. Cudic (2022) “Exploring Glycan Binding Specificity of Odorranalectin by Alanine Scanning Library.” European Journal of Organic Chemistry, published in Carbohydrate Chemistry Special Collection.

Alzheimer’s Disease Publications:

  1. Y. Singh , D. Ormaza, A. Massetti, D. Minond, and M. Cudic (2021) “Tyrosine O-GalNAc Alters Conformation and Proteolytic Susceptibility of APP Model Glycopeptides.” ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
  2. Y. Singh , D. Regmi, D. Ormaza, R. Ayyalasomayajula, N. Vela, G. Mundim, D. Minond, D. Du, and M. Cudic (2022) “Mucin-type O-Glycosylation Proximal to b-Secretase Cleavage Site Affects APP Processing and Aggregation Fate.” Frontiers in Chemistry, published in Editor’s Showcase: Chemical Biology.