Speaker: Keji Zhao, PhD
Director and Senior Investigator, Systems Biology Center,
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Web: https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/research/intramural/researchers/pi/zhao-keji/

Time : 1:30-4:00 pm , Oct. 10（Tuesday）
Venue: Room 300, SIBS Main Building, Yueyang Road 320
Host：Prof. Gang Wei
CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology

Title: CTCF is a critical player in controlling gene expression noise


Abstract:

Recent studies indicate that even a homogeneous population of cells exhibit substantial cell-to-cell variation in gene expression. Our previous single-cell DNase-seq analysis suggests that chromatin states underlie the gene expression heterogeneity across different cells. CTCF is a key protein in chromatin organization in mammalian cells. I will present data to show that the enhancer-promoter interaction mediated by CTCF plays a critical role in controlling gene expression and reducing cell-to-cell variation of expression.
Bio：

Dr. Zhao’s research focuses on the epigenetic regulation of chromatin. Understanding how epigenetic patterns are established during development and how improper epigenetic signals contribute to disease is the long-term goal for his lab. His lab developed the ChIP-SAGE, ChIP-Seq, MNase-Seq, and scDNase-seq techniques and also developed corresponding algorithms to analyze these data. Using these approaches, Dr. Zhao’s lab has been pioneering whole-genome analyses of chromatin modifications in higher eukaryotic systems. By identifying these genome-wide epigenetic patterns, Dr. Zhao’s research has revealed numerous insights into the relationship between the epigenome, chromatin-modifying enzymes, and gene expression.
All are welcome！