Event date:
Sep 11 2020 3:00 pm

Functional organisation of the genome in 3D

Speaker(s)
Dr. Stefan Schoenfelder
Venue
Zoom/Online
Abstract
The three-dimensional organization of the genome is tightly linked to its function. The cell-type specific folding of the DNA enables gene regulatory elements, including promoters and enhancers, to interact, in some cases bridging distances of hundreds of kilobases. These enhancer-promoter contacts are thought to be crucial for gene expression control. I will discuss recent progress in the methodology to map the 3D organization of chromatin in mammalian nuclei genome-wide, illustrate on examples how enhancer-promoter contacts dynamically respond to signaling cues and are rewired during cell fate transitions, and highlight some of the major challenges and open questions in the field.

Dr. Stefan Schoenfelder is a young group leader at Babraham Institute in Cambridge, UK and he has contributed enormously in the field of three dimensional chromosomal organization in nucleus and how it is linked to gene expression patterns during development.

Dr. Stefan Schoenfelder studied molecular biology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He received his PhD in 2005 from Centre for Molecular Biology in Heidelberg, studying the mechanism of a transcriptional silencer in the mouse H19/Igf2 imprinting control region. In 2005, he joined the lab of Peter Fraser at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge (UK), where he first focused on the spatial organisation of transcription in mouse erythroid cells. He established a novel method to map long-range enhancer-promoter interactions genome-wide at high resolution. Since 2018, Dr. Schoenfelder is a group leader at the Babraham Institute. His current research focus is to decipher how cis-regulatory variation underpins the functional heterogeneity between human induced pluripotent stem cells.