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SUMMARY:Towards a quantitative understanding of long-range transcriptional
  regulation
DTSTART:20240111T110000
DTEND:20240111T120000
DTSTAMP:20260510T064859Z
UID:e31dde7000ad74fe493a350dbab436f93bab1547868d042a2f3587e5
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Luca Giorgetti\nFriedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedi
 cal Research (FMI)\, Basel\, Switzerland\nAbstract: \n\nControl of gene e
 xpression relies on tens of thousands of enhancer sequences\, which enga
 ge with their target genesoften from large genomic distances and govern
  their spatio-temporal and quantitative expression dynamics. Genetic varia
 tion within these noncoding regions is a major driver of evolution\, but i
 s also causal to developmental disorders and numerous human diseases. Desp
 ite their central role in gene regulation in health and disease\, however
 \, the principles by which enhancers select and control their target genes
  remain largely unknown. What are the molecular mechanisms that transmit 
 regulatory information from an enhancer to a promoter?  How are they rela
 ted to chromosome structure and physical interactions between enhancers an
 d promoters?  Are these mechanisms universal or rather depend on locus- a
 nd tissue-specific contexts? My group addresses these fundamental questio
 ns at the interface of molecular biology and biophysics using a tight int
 erplay of experimental and theoretical approaches. In my talk\, I will p
 resent how using a combination of genomic engineering\, physical modeling 
 and live-cell imaging we recently discovered that a promoter’s transcrip
 tion level are a nonlinear function its contact probabilities with a cogna
 te enhancer\, and how this could arise from dynamic and unstable physical 
 interactions between enhancers and promoters.\n\nBiography:\nAfter studyin
 g physics\, Luca obtained his PhD in Gioacchino Natoli’s lab at the Euro
 pean Institute of Oncology in Milan working on the molecular mechanisms un
 derlying the inflammatory transcriptional response. He then moved to Paris
  for a postdoc with Edith Heard at the Curie Institute. There he participa
 ted to the discovery and characterization of topologically associating dom
 ains (TADs)\, and described the three-dimensional conformation of the inac
 tive X chromosome. Luca has been a group leader at the Friedrich Miescher 
 Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) in Basel since 2015 and has become
  a Senior Group Leader (with tenure) in 2022. His group uses approaches at
  the interface between molecular biology and physics to understand the m
 echanisms by which chromosome structure and dynamics control transcripti
 onal regulation by enhancers. Luca is the recipient of an ERC Starting Gra
 nt and an SNF ERC Consolidator Replacement Grant. He was awarded a EMBO Yo
 ung Investigator award in 2017 and was elected an EMBO member in 2023.
LOCATION:SV 1717 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==SV%201717 https://epfl.zoom.u
 s/j/66121066780
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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