Profile

DNA is not naked in the nucleus – it’s compacted by proteins called “histones”. These are organized into small complexes called “nucleosomes” (look like hockey pucks with DNA wrapped around them) – and there are millions of nucleosomes in every nucleus. Histones have long tails that carry chemical modifications, telling other proteins smth like “this part of the genome is active – read it now!” or “this part of the genome should be silent” or “this needs to be compacted” or a lot of other stuff. It’s called “epigenetic regulation” – (epi in Greek means “on top of”) – on top of the genome. I work on the intersection of genomics (“big data”) and biochemistry (a pretty odd combination) to understand the connection between compaction and function of the genome.

It is super important because DNA is the same in all* of your cells (*almost). yet cells are so different (you have skin, and nerves, and muscles, and bones, for example) – meaning same DNA is interpreted differently. Epigenetic regulation is the reason why. Also, consider that mutations in epigenetic regulators are probably the most common cause of cancers and developmental disorders.

“wet lab” refers to actual experiments that you think about when you imagine scientists (with beakers, solutions, and such). It rarely looks like that in real life though – we’ve had filming crews pass through the lab before, and were asked to “look like scientists” – because what we actually do is eitehr too small or just looks liike a giant table with a bunch of numbers. It can be an incredibly important table, but it’s not that cool to film – so we dress up in white coats, and swirl colored solutions for the cameras.