We are interested in addressing fundamental questions in chromatin biology and regulation of gene expression, focusing on the mechanism of distal regulation of gene expression and how mutations at regulatory elements lead to disease, with focus on role of histone modifications, enhancers, and noncoding transcription.

Current project in the chromatin and gene regulation lab include the investigation of the role of histone H3 globular acetylations (H3K122ac and H3K64ac), H4 tail acetylation (H4K16ac) and transcriptional coactivators including acetyl binding protein - BRD4 in enhancer function. We have also been developing and using genome-wide methodologies to better identify enhancers in the mammalian genome and factors contributing to enhancer function.

We also continue to work on the role of a chromatin protein called PSIP1, homeobox (HOX) transcription factors and long noncoding RNA HOTTIP in cancer development and therapy resistance due to altered enhancer function.

We actively collaborate with clinicians and genomics data scientists, we use cutting-edge functional genomics methods including sequencing based and CRISPR derived methods to investigate the contribution of coding and noncoding sequence variants found in genetic disorders and cancer.