Decoding enhancer function: from the nucleosome to the nucleus

Wendy Bickmore, PhD
Director | Professor
MRC Human Genetics Unit
Institute of Genetics and Cancer
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, United Kingdom

This conference is hosted by Nicole Francis, PhD. This conference is part of the 2023-2024 IRCM conference calendar.

In person: 
IRCM Auditorium
110, avenue des Pins O, H2W 1R7 Montreal

About this conferenceThe complexity of vertebrates comes not from the number of genes in the genome but from the 100s of thousands, perhaps millions, of enhancers that regulate gene expression with exquisite precision in time and space. Identifying enhancers, the genes they regulate, and the biological context in which they operate remains a major challenge. Moreover, we still do not understand how enhancers communicate to their target genes, often over long genomic distances.
I will discuss our efforts to drive progress in understanding when, where and how enhancers function in development using cellular and animal models, from the level of histone modifications through to the 3D structure of the genome in the nucleus.

About Wendy Bickmore
Dr. Wendy Bickmore is Director of the MRC Human Genetics Unit, at the University of Edinburgh. Her undergraduate degree is in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, and she then completed a PhD in molecular biology at the University of Edinburgh. Following a postdoc in human genetics, Wendy started her independent research group as a fellow of the Lister Institute for Preventive Medicine. She is fascinated by the three-dimensional organization of the human genome in cells and how that influences genome function in health and disease. Her current research explores how the non-coding genome regulates gene expression including how distant enhancers communicate with their target gene promoters. Dr. Bickmore is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Academy of Medical Sciences and is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. She was awarded a CBE for services to science and to women in science.

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