An ambitious EC-funded research initiative on epigenetics advancing towards systems biology

Our long-term goal is to understand how gene expression and genome packaging is affected by genetic and epigenetic changes that happen during evolution, development and in disease, in particular cancer. Our research approach is to computationally analyse global datasets in order to understand general mechanisms, test existing but previously untested ideas or propose novel hypotheses. This ŒSystems-level¹ approach to biology is very complementary to the traditional way of experimentally dissecting parts of the cell.

1. Chromatin organization of regulatory elements in somatic cells.
2. Chromatin organization in the male germline.
3. The role of DNA methylation and chromatin in transcription regulation.

• Tanya Vavouri, PI
• Guerau Fernandez (Postdoc)
• Eduard Casas (PhD student)