GO:MCB | Graduate Organization: Molecular and Cell Biology

Emma Watson
Assistant Professor, Department of Systems Biology
University of Massachusetts, Chan Medical School
Host: Andrei Alexandrescu

Chromosomal structure and function in cancer

Over 90% of cancer genomes have abnormal chromosomal composition, deviating (often significantly) from the normal 46 chromosomes in healthy cells. Chromosomes can be gained, lost, broken, and fused together during tumor genome evolution, with genomes ultimately converging on a set of features that are enriched in a tumor type-specific manner, for instance, +1q and +8q in breast cancer. We utilize in vitro approaches to model karyotype evolution in cancer and build tumor genomes in the lab from healthy diploid genomes. We use these models to uncover structural facilitators and functional drivers of these common chromosomal abnormalities in cancer.

About Dr. Watson:
Dr. Emma V. Watson obtained her B.S. in Biophysics from UConn, studying protein folding with Dr. Andrei Alexandrescu, and received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Science from UMass Chan Medical School studying metabolic gene network regulation with Dr. A. J. Marian Walhout. For her thesis work, Dr. Watson received an American Heart Association fellowship and the Harold M. Weintraub Award. Dr. Watson was a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Stephen J. Elledge’s lab at Harvard Medical School, where she uncovered oncogenic roles of chromosomal abnormalities in cancer. Dr. Watson opened her lab at UMass Chan Medical School in 2022 where she focuses on cancer genome structure and function.

Publications:

Chromosome evolution screens recapitulate tissue-specific tumor aneuploidy patterns

An aneuploidy epistasis map reveals metabolic vulnerabilities associated with supernumerary chromosomes in cancer

Watson Lab website

Claire Peterson
Lynes Lab

Distinguishing Inflammatory Diseases Using a Grating-Coupled Fluorescence Plasmonic Biomarker Signature Assay

Host and pathogen factors that influence variability of Mycobacterium tuberculosis lipid body content in sputum from patients with tuberculosis: an observational study/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666524724001083?via%3Dihub

Dr. Eric Joyce
University of Pennsylvania
Host: Jelena Erceg

From tangled mess to ordered structure: unraveling the mechanisms of 3D genome organization

My presentation will discuss our work to understand the mechanisms of genome organization. We leverage the HiDROplatform to identify and explore a noncanonical role of GSK3A, offering insights into chromatin dynamics and potential therapeutic strategies for cohesin-related disorders

About Dr. Joyce:
Eric Joyce, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Genetics and core member of the Epigenetics Institute at the Universityof Pennsylvania. Dr. Joyce conducted his postdoctoral training with Dr. Ting Wu at Harvard Medical School, where heco-developed a novel type of FISH probe called Oligopaints. Dr. Joyce’s lab continues to develop and utilize newtechnologies to interrogate chromosome structure at single-cell resolution. His lab aims to understand how thestructure of chromosomes within the nucleus is established and inherited across cell divisions, and how dysfunctionalorganization contributes to genome instability and disease. Most recently, his lab developed HiDRO, an automatedimaging pipeline to identify novel proteins that regulate genome organization.

Publications:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37438531/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36449519/

Joyce Lab

Garrett Skidds
Teschke Lab