Welcome to the Department of Genetics

News

• Collaborative Cross highlighted in Scientific American:

   Engineered Mice Mimic Human Populations

  Gary Churchill is currently a visiting Professor in the Department of Genetics.  Fernando Pardo-Manuel de Villena and Pat Sullivan are directors of The Center for Integrated Systems Genomics (CISGen), one of nine NHGRI-funded Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science, which is focused on using the CC mice to study psychiatric conditions.  Fernando has been a key proponent in the development of the Collaborative Cross and manages this resource at UNC.  Pat and his coworkers are recognized for their work using human GWAS studies to study the genetic basis of psychiatric disorders.

• Kyle Gaulton, a graduate student in Karen Mohlke's lab, is the first author on a paper that has just appeared as an Advance Online Publication in Nature Genetics:

  A map of open chromatin in human pancreatic islets

  Among the coauthors on this paper, in addition to Karen, are Marie Fogerty and Tami Panhuis, who are postdocs in her lab, Piotr Mieczkowski (Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics), and Jason Lieb (Associate Professor in the Department of Biology and the CCGS).  This work was done in collaboration with a group of European investigators, led by Jorge Ferrer in Barcelona.  Gaulton et al. have identified clusters of pancreatic-islet-selective open chromatin sites using FAIRE-seq (formaldehyde-assisted isolation of regulatory elements coupled with high-throughput sequencing).  Many of these sites are located in intergenic regions and are likely to be involved in regulation of the expression of genes with islet-specific functions.  They also report that an intronic variant rs7903146 in the TCF7L2 gene that shows consistent association with type 2 diabetes is located in one of the islet-selective open chromatin sites.

• Newsletter - Spring 2009

Events

• Department of Genetics and Curriculum in Genetics 2009 Research Retreat in the Mountains, Sept. 25-27, 2009 in Asheville, NC.  The registration deadline is August 15.  Please follow the link for more information and to register.
• Genetics Research Colloquia - Wednesdays @ Noon, Lineberger Cancer Center, Pagano (i.e., Plaza Level) Conference Room
• GMB Friday Seminar Series (guest speakers) - Fridays at noon, G202 MBRB
• Carolina Center for Genome Sciences Seminar Series