As I progress through my graduate studies, I gain a greater appreciation for the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for the complete understanding of complex biological mechanisms. Thus, I have intentionally sought to develop my experience in many different experimental and computational techniques through my thesis project, including the experiments proposed in this application. My proposal is focused on gene regulatory mechanisms of microRNAs in malignant germ cell tumorigenesis and my planned research aims for this one-year funding period will combine key genetic techniques with integrative genomic analyses to apply to cancer research. Successful completion of this proposal will strengthen a multidisciplinary skill set including genetically manipulating cells, interpreting tissue histopathology, analyzing complex genomic sequencing assays, determining efficacy of therapeutic drugs, and performing mouse surgical procedures. Specifically, I will learn to: (1) genetically manipulate cells using shRNA and microRNA mimic treatments; (2) stain and analyze tissue histopathology of heterogeneous germ cell tumors; (3) generate libraries for PRO-seq, a cutting-edge sequencing assay that measures nascent RNA transcripts developed at Cornell; (4) computationally analyze large RNA-seq and PRO-seq sequencing assays for the novel CARP computational pipeline; (5) determine therapeutic drug efficacy using cell viability assays; and (6) perform laboratory mouse procedures by transplanting cells to generate tumor xenografts. These skills with be invaluable for my training goals of an interdisciplinary study of cancer research and for my long-term career goal of becoming a biomedical researcher at a top-tier research institution.