Brenita is the Lab Manager for the McReynolds Lab. She joined the lab in July 2022. Brenita was Faculty at Alcorn State University in the Department of Biological Sciences before returning to Penn State. While at Alcorn, she also served as Research Associate in the newly established Cancer Biology Lab on campus. The lab’s focus was to elucidate metabolic pathways that could circumvent ovarian cancer cell multiple drug resistance to develop novel therapeutic options through dietary supplementation of cruciferous vegetables such as kale and water cress, as well as curcumin which is derived from turmeric. Brenita is an alumnus of Penn State in the graduating class of Fall 2015. Her Master’s thesis work focused on understanding the influence of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors on alcohol behavior in adolescent mice. Brenita is also an alumnus of Alcorn State University class of Spring 2012. Her Master’s thesis work there focused on understanding various roles of the Ccmp1 lab developed model strain of S. cerevisiae and its role as a moonlighting protein by altering amino acids in its pentatricopeptide repeat motif. Brenita’s contributions to the McReynolds Lab will be geared toward establishing Multiple Myeloma in vitro and in vivo models for elucidating the connection to NAD⁺ metabolism, in addition to all managerial responsibilities within the lab.