GRIT Talks: Unlocking the dynamic code beyond DNA: How high-resolution epigenetic measurements uncover cellular decision making

All cells in our bodies have identical DNA, yet different cell types, such as those in the heart or eyes, perform distinct biological functions due to differences in their epigenome, a wide collection of chemical modifications on DNA and other DNA-associated proteins, that control the activity of thousands of genes. Further, the complexity and heterogeneity of human tissues makes it challenging to directly link how these epigenetic marks regulate gene activity. Therefore, I will describe new technologies my group is developing that are enabling measurements of varied epigenetic features on a genome-wide scale in single cells, thereby providing
deeper insights into how these modifications influence cellular behavior, and provides opportunities to modulate cell identity for applications ranging from regenerative biology to reverting diseased cellular states.

About the Speaker: Siddharth Dey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2012 and thereafter conducted post-doctoral research at the Hubrecht Institute in The Netherlands. Dr. Dey then moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2017 to start his independent research group. Dr. Dey’s lab has been funded by NSF grants and NIH R01 grants from NICHD and NHGRI that support their work developing multiomics single-cell sequencing technologies to study how variability in the epigenome regulates gene expression heterogeneity and cell fate decisions during early mammalian development. As a PI/co-PI on training grants from NIH and NSF, Dr. Dey is also deeply committed to training the next-generation of scientists. Dr. Dey’s work has been published in several leading journals, including Nature Biotechnology, Nature Structural Molecular Biology, Nature Communications, Nature Protocols, Cell, Cell Reports Methods, Stem Cell Reports, and Molecular Systems Biology. For his
recent accomplishments, Dr. Dey has received the NSF CAREER Award, Shu Chien Early Career Jury Prize, and has been invited to present the Potter Lecture at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center for his contributions to technology development in biosciences.