2006 - Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, Ph.D
2001 - Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass., B.A.
2017 to present - Associate Professor, Department of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases Research, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, Duarte, CA
2014 to 2017 - Assistant Professor, Department of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases Research, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, Duarte, CA
2010 to 2014 - Assistant Professor, Department of Cancer Biology, Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope, Duarte, CA
2006 to 2010 - Postdoctoral Fellow, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
2003 to 2006 - Graduate Research Assistant, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Complex metabolic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and obesity result from the interaction of multiple genetic and environmental factors. We are exploring the interaction of epigenetic and genetic variation in the development of complex disease. We utilize an integrative approach combining computational and experimental approaches to study these problems.
We recently have been investigating chromatin modifications in response to high-fat diet in mouse models of obesity (J Biol Chem. 289(34):23557-67 2014) and the potential persistence of these modifications as mediators of long-term disease risk (J Biol Chem. 291(20):10446-55 2016).
Our most recent work examined the variability in chromatin accessibility across different strains of mice with phenotypic diversity in response to a high fat / high-sucrose diet. We demonstrated that specific families of transposable elements are enriched at sites of variable chromatin and that transposable elements of different evolutionary age had unique transcription factor binding sites. Furthermore, CRISPR-Cas9 deletion of variable chromatin sites at evolutionarily younger transposable elements altered the expression of metabolic genes (Epigenetics Chromatin 9:28 2016)
Another area of interest is in the establishment of chromatin domains in development and how disruption of these domains leads to disease progression. We have demonstrated that repressive heterochromatin domains are established at specific genomic loci at certain stages of differentiation (Epigenetics Chromatin 7:23 2014). We have furthermore been investigating how environmental factors disrupt chromatin domains and the potential for these alterations to contribute to disease (P Natl Acad Sci USA.111(40) 2014).
Parijat Senapati, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
626-256-4673, ext. 64521
pasenapati@coh.org
Michael Lee
Grad Student
626-256-4673 ext. 64521
michlee@coh.org
Juan Du
Staff Scientist
626-256-4673 ext. 85592
jdu@coh.org
Candi Trac, M.S.
Research Associate II
626-256-4673, ext. 64521
ctrac@coh.org
Information listed here is obtained from a public database; City of Hope is not responsible for its accuracy.
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