Ashot completed his PhD at UCLA in Dr. Steve Jacobsen’s lab, where he studied gene regulation and developed novel CRISPR-based tools for specifically modulating gene expression by targeting and altering epigenetic marks to elucidate mechanisms regulating gene activation and gene silencing. After his PhD, he began work at Inari Agriculture, where he was a project leader, leading a team focused on new tools for precise genome modifications. Following Inari, Ashot worked as a Computational Scientist in the Michael Lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and led genome engineering projects across plant biology labs and the Harnessing Plants Initiative program. As a Research Scientist in the Nolan and Demirer Labs, Ashot is developing strategies and novel approaches for single-cell screening and precision editing of plant genomes.