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UPGG Distinguished Lecturer Series

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Thursday, March 05, 2015
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Jeanne Lawrence, Ph.D.
"From Fundamental Epigentics to Down Syndrome and Back Again"

Jeanne Lawrence¿s interests and background bridge the areas of human clinical genetics and developmental epigenetics in the regulation of chromosomes. Her lab has long developed approaches for visualizing single genes and RNAs within individual cells and has published extensively on compartmentalization of the mammalian cell nucleus, showing the cell-type specific organization of endogenous genes, RNAs, and proteins with specific nuclear sub-compartments. Her lab is specifically interested in non-coding RNAs, which included their demonstration that XIST RNA is a novel nuclear RNA that ¿paints¿ the inactive X chromosome, where it induces a host of heterochromatin modifications, and her recent work investigating how this unique RNA binds and restructures the chromosome. The Lawrence lab has also studied other long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), including NEAT1 RNA, which provides precedent for an ¿architectural RNA¿ that forms the foundation for a cytological-scale structure, nuclear paraspeckles. Dr. Lawrence's work includes studies of heterochromatin formation/loss and changing nuclear structure in cancer cells and during programming and reverse programming of human ES and iPS cells.

Type: LECTURE/TALK
Contact: Carolyn Weinbaum