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

Genomics of Quantitative Variation, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI), Hinxton, United Kingdom

Data-Driven Bayesian Network of the Genetic-Epigenetic Regulatory Pathways in Hematopoietic Cells

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This Epigenesys-funded project aims to apply system genetic approaches based on Bayesian networks to model regulatory pathways between genetic variants and molecular phenotypes measured in blood cells. Specifically, the project will seek to characterize genetic variants regulating the processes of differentiation, proliferation and fate determination in the human haematopoietic system. Such analyses will be based on novel genomic, transcriptomic and epigenetic datasets generated for all mature blood cell types and their precursors by the EU-funded BLUEPRINT project. Furthermore, through collaboration with Dr Cedric Ghevaert and Dr Ludovic Vallier at the University of Cambridge, we will seek to extend analyses to select blood cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. Dr Louella Vasquez (PhD Physics, WTSI Postdoctoral Fellow) will lead the statistical analyses and development of new modeling approaches.