Contact Details
Despite the availability of genome sequences for many model organisms, our understanding of developmental gene regulatory networks (GRNs) is still relatively poor. My laboratory will focus on increasing our knowledge of network understanding by:
- generating quality datasets to unravel the nodes (genes, signalling pathways, regulatory elements) and edges (regulatory interactions) that compose the GRN,
- integrating this information using computational modelling, to recapitulate the complex processes that occur during development, and to predict the effects of perturbation as seen in congenital diseases,
- performing cross-species comparisons, to study the evolution of GRNs and investigate conserved and non-conserved regulatory properties and how they contribute to animal diversity.
Using a combination of bioinformatics tools and zebrafish as a model system, I intend to bring about significant advances in our appreciation of how GRNs drive embryonic development through the integration of cis-regulatory codes, how they are co-opted and modified during evolution and how they relate to disease pathophysiology.
Highlight publications
Imp promotes axonal remodeling by regulating profilin mRNA during brain development. Curr Biol. 2014 Mar 31;24(7):793-800. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.02.038. Epub 2014 Mar 20.
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Imp promotes axonal remodeling by regulating profilin mRNA during brain development. |
Defining the earliest step of cardiovascular progenitor specification during embryonic stem cell differentiation. J Cell Biol. 2011 Mar 7;192(5):751-65. doi: 10.1083/jcb.201007063.
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Defining the earliest step of cardiovascular progenitor specification during embryonic stem cell differentiation. |
Minimum information specification for in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry experiments (MISFISHIE). Nat Biotechnol. 2008 Mar;26(3):305-12. doi: 10.1038/nbt1391.
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Minimum information specification for in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry experiments (MISFISHIE). |