assisting me during my committee meetings when discussions of fluorescence started to

go over my head.

 I would also like to take the time to thank everyone that I had the pleasure of

working with in the lab. These are the people I spent countless hours with during the

course of the day and held many scientific and personal conversations with, and I am

happy to be able to call them my friends. I could not have spent the last five years with a

better group of people. Drs. Tammy Otto and Debra Zies were members of the lab when

I first j oined and were the ones who taught me the ways of the lab. Dr. Michelle Gumz

joined the graduate program and subsequently joined Dr. Cain's lab the same time as I. I

would like to thank Tammy, Debbie and Michelle for their scientific and personal support

as well as sharing with me memories of pool barbeques, wedding showers and baby

showers. Dr. Deepa Bhatt joined the lab as a postdoc during my graduate career. Her

friendship and scientific guidance have been very valuable to me. I would like to thank

her for giving me fantastic advice on all of my oral presentations and reviewing all of my

papers.

 And finally, I would like to thank my family for all the encouragement, love and

support they have unwaveringly offered over the years. I would like to thank my dad for

always finding the positive in everything that was negative and always encouraging me to

overcome the many obstacles that graduate school hurled towards me. He never lost faith

in me, even when I was ready to give up. I would like to thank my mom for her

tremendous support as well. She spent a lot of time and energy stocking my refrigerator

and freezer full of meals when I found that I did not have the time to care for myself. She

has spent many weeks and weekends at my home since my daughter was born so that I