Transcription control and 3D genome organization
Some our team headed off to Boston for the 4DN annual meeting and a chance to catch up on the latest science from our consortia. The weather was warm (for Boston) and the science was amazing. Thanks to all the organizers for a smooth and exciting meeting.
We enjoyed a kayaking excursion (and stand-up paddle board) up the Elkhorn Slough at Moss Landing (the middle of the Monterey Bay) to watch the sea otters and other wildlife at play.
The lab gathered last week to wish Sedona congratulations and best of luck as she launches her independent career at Yale as an inaugural Yale School of Medicine Science Fellow. We will miss you, but look forward to following the exciting directions of your work!
Postdoc and Resident Fellow Arnav Moudgil, and undergraduate Kate Scuderi join the team. Arnav understanding effects of 3D genome organization on enhancer-promoter communication in mammalian cells. Kate will be working with Aleena to investigate mechanisms of genome folding in post-mitotic Drosophila brains.
Sedona defended her thesis on Friday and graduated on Saturday.
Our department’s Community College Outreach Program received the President’s Award for Excellence Through Diversity. Thanks to Megan, Wendy, Teni, Sarah and others for your leadership of the program, Aleena and many others for mentoring students, chair Anne Villeneuve for supporting and enabling the program, and the Packard Foundation for contributing funding support!
More information in the Stanford Report:
Du and Xie highlight the emerging works on multiway interactions in transcriptional regulation, including Liang-Fu’s recent work on SOX9 regulation, along with new discoveries from the Levine lab on GAF mediated interactions and the Fukaya lab imaging transcriptional condensates correlated with transcriptional bursts in live imaging. See here: https://www.cell.com/molecular-cell/fulltext/S1097-2765(23)00322-2#bib1
On the cover: In this issue of Molecular Cell, Chen et al. probe the 3D structure of the human SOX9 locus during differentiation. Pronounced changes in locus topology can be observed between cell types. These ensemble-average differences arise through changes in the frequency of commonly sampled structures. This is akin to a dance, where an overlapping set of movements or steps arranged distinctly can result in different dances. The image depicts these dynamic DNA structures as dancers, with two groups of dancers representing two different cell types. Artwork: Mesa Schumacher.
The lab celebrates Tonia’s success and new PI position starting at Genentech with a farewell dinner. Congrats Tonia! We’ll miss having you on in the lab but look forward to watching your new directions!
