Dr. Samantha Deal

Dr. Samantha Deal started at Mercer University in August 2025. Before joining the Department of Biology at Mercer, she got her Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine, where she used the fruit fly to identify and study genes that are important for neurodevelopment and behavior. After that, she began exploring the connection between mitochondria and sleep disruption in aging at the University of Pennsylvania.

Education

• IRACDA Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania
• Ph.D., Developmental Biology, Baylor College of Medicine
• B.S., North Carolina State University

Specialty

Genetics of neurobiology, drosophila melanogaster, and development.

Professional Interests

Dr. Deal’s primary research interest is in understanding the role of mitochondria in sleep disruption as we age. To investigate this, she uses the the fruit fly. Previously, she identified that reducing the mitochondrial polymerase (PolG) has an age dependent effect on sleep. Moreover, the role of PolG is different in neurons and glia. She is also examining known sleep mutants in the fly for mitochondrial defects and investigating if rescuing these defects can rescue sleep. Learn more at dealflylab.com.

Dr. Deal is also interested in using the fruit fly to explore rare human disease genetics. While sequencing has become more affordable and expanded the known genes that impact human health, there are still many gene variants with unknown function and mechanistic understanding. Dr. Deal focuses on understanding rare mitochondrial disease genes.

Dr. Deal’s teaching interest is varied, but she is currently teaching introductory biology, development, genetics, and neurobiology.

Other Interests

Dr. Deal loves spending time with her family, going to new events and restaurants, doing things outdoors, and playing disc golf. When she has downtime, she loves to read epic fantasy book series (especially anything by Brandon Sanderson) and play video games (particularly RPGs).

Recent Publications

Deal SL, Bei D, Gibson SB, Delgato-Seo H, Seto ES, Sehgal A, Yamamoto S (2025) “RNAi-based screen for cuticle pigmentation in Drosophila melanogaster reveals novel regulators of brain dopamine.” In revision at iScience.

Marcogliese PC*, Deal SL*, Andrews J*, Harnish JM*, et al. (2021) “Drosophila functional screening of de novo variants in autism uncovers deleterious variants and facilitates discovery of rare neurodevelopmental diseases.” Cell Reports. 2022 Mar 15; 38(11):110517. doi:
10.1016/j.celrep.2022.110517. PMID: 35294868.

Harnish JM*, Deal S*, Chao HT, Wangler MF, Yamamoto S. (2019) “In Vivo Functional Study of Disease‐associated Rare Human Variants Using Drosophila.” Journal of Visual Experiments (JoVE). (150), e59658.

Deal SL, Yamamoto S. (2018) “Unraveling novel mechanisms of neurodegeneration through a large‐scale forward genetic screen in Drosophila.” Frontiers in Genetics 9(700). PMID: 30693015

*Authors contributed equally

Contact Dr. Samantha Deal

(478) 301-2707
deal_s@mercer.edu
Office: Godsey Science Center, Room 334