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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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James Dahlman
Summary Sentence: BME Seminar Speaker - Yarui Diao, Ph.D.*
Full Summary: No summary paragraph submitted.
Yarui Diao, PhD**** BME Faculty Candidate ***
ABSTRACT
The precise transcriptional regulation involves the interplay between cis- (e.g. promoters and enhancers) and trans- (e.g. transcription factors) regulatory factors. In the human genome, millions of cis-regulatory elements have been predicted through the analysis of chromatin biochemical features. Most strikingly, these regulatory sequence harbors >90% of human diseases associated genetic variants, leading to the theory that genetic lesions in the regulatory elements can substantially contribute to human diseases. However, for most of the cis-regulatory elements, their functional consequence in the native chromatin context remains largely unknown. It is also challenging to annotate the enhancer regulatory target gene. To fill such knowledge gap, I developed high-throughput CRISPR/Cas9 screen strategies that allow for genome-wide functional characterization of non-coding regulatory sequence in the native chromatin context. My work demonstrated that many gene promoters act as long-range enhancers, and challenged the traditional concept that promoter and enhancer are distinct elements. I also mapped the promoter-centered long-range chromatin interactions in 27 human tissue types, to interpret the regulatory target gene of enhancer and disease associated genetic variants. In the future, I will integrate the cutting-edge functional genomics tools with muscle stem cell model and iPSC technology to improve the understanding of the mechanism that control muscle stem cell regenerative potency, and in the long-run, to develop stem cell based therapies to treat muscular disorders which affect aging, cancer, and a broad spectrum of human diseases.
Host: James Dahlman, Ph.D.
