News

Some time back, a german film team visited us for a documentary on gender medicine. It's now online, we are in the first part :

• Link to video (in German)

5^th X-inactivation meeting (EMBO)
19-22 June 2023, in Berlin

Registration deadline: 01 April 2023.
25 talks selected from abstracts.

• Meeting website

Ilona celebrates her 40-year anniversary of working at this institute! We are very grateful to have her on our team, managing the lab and doing the most challenging experiments!

Rafael Galupa will stay with us for two months to do several CRISPR screens. Welcome!
 

Jonathan Froehlich joins the team as a Postdoc. Welcome!
 

Our Nelly Kanata won a poster prize at the 2022 Max Planck Freiburg Epigenetics Meeting. Congratulations @nellykanata !
 

The new round of PhD program recruitment is open, deadline is January 6^th, 2023.

• IMPRS PhD program

Our lab proposes two potential projects. One to study how different levels in gene regulatory factors affect cellular decision. The second to study how gene regulatory DNA affects cell-to-cell heterogeneity in transcriptional responses. Both projects will be relevant to better understand gene regulation and cell fate; using CRISPR tools, genomic profiling techniques, and relevant computational analysis.

• Project sketches

We present CasTuner, a CRISPR-based toolkit that allows analog tuning of endogenous gene expression.

• CasTuner: a degron and CRISPR/Cas-based toolkit for analog tuning of endogenous gene expression. Noviello G, Rutger RAF, and Schulz EG. BioRxiv 2022
• Edda & Gemma's tweetorial

Nelly will attend the “Max Planck Freiburg 6th Epigenetics Meeting”
30 Nov – 02 Dec 2022
Reach out to Nelly Kanata!
https://events.ie-freiburg.mpg.de/3161/1About_the_conference

 

Till will attend “EMBO - From functional genomics to systems biology”
15 - 18 Nov 2022
Reach out to Till Schwämmle!
https://www.embl.org/about/info/course-and-conference-office/events/omx22-01/
 

We scanned the regulatory landscape of Xist and found several proximal and distal enhancers, as well as a new ncRNA Xert, that all control X-inactivation.

• Distal and proximal cis-regulatory elements sense X-chromosomal dosage and developmental state at the Xist locus. Gjaltema RAF*, Schwämmle T*, Kautz P, Robson M, Schöpflin R, Lustig LR, Brandenburg L, Dunkel I, Vechiatto C, Ntini E, Mutzel V, Schmiedel V, Marsico A, Mundlos S, Schulz EG. Molecular Cell 2021
• Preview by Elphège Nora here.
• Institute’s press release here.

Edda has been accepted by the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) into its Young Investigators Programme. Every year, the organization honors the most promising young researchers in Europe.

• Institute’s press release here.

Our work together with the Marsico lab, where we use machine learning to identify the rules of Xist-mediated gene silencing was published:

• Kinetics of Xist-induced gene silencing can be predicted from combinations of epigenetic and genomic features. Barros de Andrade E Sousa L, Jonkers I, Syx L, Dunkel I, Chaumeil J, Picard C, Foret B, Chen CJ, Lis JT, Heard E, Schulz EG, Marsico A. Genome Res. 2019

First mathematical model of Xist regulatory network published. See press release

• A symmetric toggle switch explains the onset of random X inactivation in different mammals. Mutzel V, Okamoto I, Dunkel I, Saitou M, Giorgetti L, Heard E, Schulz EG. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 2019

As part of the "Max Planck Day" we got a visit from the Youtuber Dr Watson to explain our work on X inactivation.

• Link to the video "Welche Geheimnisse haben X-Chromosomen?" (in German).
• Information about the Max Planck Day (in German).