BRFAA - Biomedical Research Foundation Academy Of Athens
Biomedical Research Foundation Academy Of AthensAcademy Of Athens

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Our laboratory investigates the fundamental mechanisms regulating gene transcription in mammalian cells.  We are using the reprogramming of the human genome in response to virus infection as a model system to understand how a small number of transcription factors and chromatin regulators interact to define cell type specific gene expression programs.  More specifically, we employ a wide spectrum of molecular, biochemical, imaging and computational approaches to decipher the molecular basis by which purely stochastic biochemical reactions, such as transcription factor DNA binding, chromatin remodelling and interchromosomal interactions can define robust antiviral gene expression programs.  We are also using cellular reprogramming to ground state pluripotency as a model system to understand how the human genome is stochastically reprogrammed by a small number of transcription factors (Yamanaka factors) to generate induced pluripotency stem cells (iPS).  More specifically, we study how novel gene expression networks are generated during cellular reprogramming to induce the formation of iPS cells. These interests arose, in part, from our previous work studying the mechanisms by which the human interferon-β (IFN-β) gene responds to virus infection. These studies led to the establishment of novel concepts in the field of gene regulation like the discovery and characterization of the IFN-β enhanceosome, and the elucidation of the functional interplay between signal transduction pathways, enhanceosomes and chromatin structure in the activation of the IFN-β gene.