Institute Lecture 2024

Title: Genome Maintenance at Higher Resolution

Abstract:

My laboratory develops and uses biophysical tools to study how the genome is accurately duplicated and repaired for preserving genomic integrity. We advanced CRISPR-based tools in terms of time and space resolution as well as multiplexing and obtained novel insights about repair of CRISPR-generated DNA damage (Liu et al, Science 2020; Zou et al, Nature Cell Biology 2022). Because genome maintenance occurs in the context of chromatin and 3D genome, and in the presence of ongoing nuclear processes such as transcription and epigenetic regulation, we have also been studying how DNA sequences and modifications as well as histone modifications can act directly act through changes in biophysical properties of DNA and chromatin such as DNA flexibility and nucleosome stability and condensability (Basu et al, Nature 2021; Basu et al, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 2022). In this presentation, I will discuss a newly discovered relation between homologous recombination mediated DNA repair and 3D genome, and intrinsic encoding of genome organization principles within single native nucleosomes.

About Speaker:

Prof. Taekjip Ha is the George D. Yancopoulos Professor of Pediatrics at the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School and a Senior Investigator of Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston, USA. His research is focused on pushing the limits of single-molecule detection methods to study complex biological systems. His group develops state-of-the-art biophysical techniques (e.g., multicolor fluorescence, super-resolution imaging, combined force and fluorescence spectroscopy, vesicular encapsulation, single-molecule pull-down) and applies them to study diverse protein–nucleic acid and protein-protein complexes, and mechanical perturbation and response of these systems both in vitro and in vivo.