Failure of normal chromosome delivery have broad medical implications, including infertility and birth defects. Moreover, many human tumors have abnormal numbers of chromosomes, a condition known as aneuploidy, and several types of cancer acquired neocentromeres (epigenetic stable acquisition of a new centromere at a new chromosomal site). Therefore, identification of the initial events driving mammalian centromere assembly, as well as the mechanisms required for centromere maintenance and propagation, is of high biological relevance given its broad effects on infertility and tumor development.
Current efforts are aimed towards understanding:
- the epigenomic landscape of centromeric chromatin
- consequences of ectopic CENP-A deposition in human cells
- is the error correction mechanism disrupted in cancer cells?
- regulation and maintenance of centromeric chromatin across the cell cycle in health and disease
Possible Rotation Projects include:
- Optimizing DiMelo-seq for various applications
- Examining the relationship of CENP-A/C/T centromere proteins at human centromeres using next generation genome wide approaches
- Chromosome elimination using CRISPR/Cas9
- Optimizing single molecule approaches to detect histone PTMs