Abstract
Transcription factors (TFs) are essential for regulating all kinds of cellular processes. In addition, thousands of genome wide association studies (GWAS) that link genetic variants to complex diseases have revealed that most variants associated with diseases lie in the non-coding genome and thus likely affect regulatory elements, rather than protein coding genes. This makes TFs a particularly interesting class of proteins to study for understanding disease mechanisms.
Here I will present how we can use quantitative modeling to better understand combinatorial TF binding, how TF binding affects alternative splicing and finally how we can gain insights into disease mechanisms (e.g. for pulmonary artery hypertension) by comparing TF activities between patients and controls.
Meet the speaker
If you want to meet Dr. Judith Zaugg, please book a time slot at https://doodle.com/poll/ndp8zef8r6dwgmgy and send an email to anthony.mathelier@ncmm.uio.no.
Biography
Dr. Zaugg did her PhD at the EMBL-EBI studying computational functional genomics under the supervision of Nick Luscombe. Then she joined the lab of Dr. Steinmetz lab in 2012 at Stanford University for her postdoc where she integrated histone modification and chromatin conformation data to analyze the genetic basis of regulatory variation across healthy human individuals. Since 2014, she is a Group Leader at EMBL Heidelberg. Her group aims at understanding the molecular basis of complex genetic traits and diseases using genome-wide data of various molecular phenotypes, and developing multi-omics data integration approaches.
Website
Junior talk
Dr. Zaugg's lecture will be preceded by a talk given by Dr. Xavier Tekpli, postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Kristensen's group at the Institute for Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital. He will be presenting the talk entitled "Genome wide associations between DNA methylation and gene expression unravel transcription factories in breast cancer."