Research projects

Our research combines the emerging fields of 3D chromatin conformation, epitranscriptomics and non-coding RNAs to advance our understanding on a fundamental question: how is gene expression regulated in pluripotent cells and what are the epigenetic and transcriptional networks that maintain tumorigenesis.

The introduction of chromosome conformation capture (3C)-based technologies coupled with sequencing, such as Hi-C and its derivatives, has advanced the field of 3D-genome research by expanding our ability to understand the chromatin architecture at a genome-wide level. Identifying which factors mediate contacts between regulatory regions, such as enhancers and their target promoters, is crucial in order to better understand the molecular principles governing cell-type-specific gene expression patterns.Several studies showed that transcription factors play an essential role in the formation and maintenance of promoter-enhancer contacts.

We aim to study, in a genome-wide scale, how  non-coding RNAs and their epitranscriptomic modifications  can shape the 3D genome and dictate differential gene expression patterns.

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Main questions:

To what degree are ncRNAs involved in the organization of the 3D genome?

How can epitranscriptomic marks influence the 3D chromatin architecture?

​Can we target ncRNAs and epitranscript marks to modulate 3D hubs in cancer stem cells ?

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