Epigenetics researchers at WID examine how the epigenome — the layer of chemical information that sits on top of the genome — switches genes ‘on’ or ‘off’ and is controlled by outside factors such as lifestyle and diet. Research in this area focuses on the molecular, chemical, and physical components underlying epigenetic mechanisms and utilizes genomic, proteomic, and biochemical methods to reveal novel epigenetic information and mechanisms. We are investigating how extrinsic factors (diet, small-molecules, metabolism and environmental factors) influence the epigenome and control cellular decision and are developing new technologies to uncover and interrogate the epigenetic code written in chemical tags.
As part of WID’s Multi-Omics Hub, the Epigenetics Initiative reaches out to foster interdisciplinary collaborations with basic and translational research in epigenetics and chromatin function.
A new publication from the Xuehua Zhong’s group at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the genetics department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison clarifies an important epigenetic mechanism in plants that will help researchers better understand the epigenomes of both plants and animals.
Rupa Sridharan was among 24 UW professors to earn Vilas professorships and awards. The Vilas Faculty Mid-Career Investigator Award recognizes research and teaching excellence and provides flexible research funding for three years.
Genetics professor Xuehua Zhong is a true believer in the power of outreach to instill a love of science in young people and develop mentoring skills in her students. To her delight, she has found an opportunity to do both.
Xuehua Zhong’s close study of an ordinary plant’s cellular mechanisms could lead to big advances in agriculture and medicine. Zhong is featured in Grow magazine.
WID seeks to add to its roster of excellent faculty with two new hires in emerging cutting-edge fields.
WID’s new hubs—Data Science, Multi-Omics, and Illuminating Discovery—represent a new path forward for collaborative research projects and fields.
The Wisconsin Institute for Discovery will launch a suite of hubs designed to bring together researchers from across campus and provide access to specialized tools and resources.
An international team of researchers including WID scientists has discovered new mechanisms to regulate the activity of a gene essential in metabolism, with implications for pathologies related to alterations in glucose levels in the body, such as diabetes or metastasis in some types of cancer.
With Wisconsin’s short growing seasons, reducing a plant’s life cycle and completing the season earlier “could be very important for many crops.”
Peter Lewis and his research group at WID study how mutations in DNA-organizing histone proteins lead to cancer development.
Investigators from WID are among the recipients of the latest round of UW2020 awards.
One of the UW Carbone Cancer Center members presenting is WID’s Peter Lewis. His work focuses on how genes are turned on and off during embryonic development, and how misregulation in those genes can lead to some childhood cancers.
Mark Klein and Peter Lewis were recognized for their cancer research awards from The Ride, sponsored by the UW Carbone Cancer Center, at a recent Wisconsin Men’s Hockey game.
Newly characterized roles for plant histone deacetylases have implications for growth and development. The Zhong Lab explores the influence of the enzymes in both transcription and translation.
WID researcher Sushmita Roy and collaborators at UW–Madison and the University of Florida will use a $7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study how some plants partner with bacteria to create usable nitrogen and to transfer this ability to the bioenergy crop poplar.
Xuehua Zhong recently received an outstanding investigator award from NIH via the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) mechanism to support her research. She talked about how she uses plants to study epigenetics in an interview with Grow magazine.
Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) researchers Rupa Sridharan and Sushmita Roy are combining their expertise in regenerative biology and computational biology to better understand how cells transition from one type to another through gene regulation.
The podcast “Is DNA the Basis for all Life in the Universe?” produced by The Naked Scientists, an affiliate of the BBC at Cambridge University features John Denu speaking of his recent findings on how the gut microbiome affects DNA expression.
Systems Biology researcher Sushmita Roy is leading an effort putting computational methods to work characterizing the gene regulatory networks responsible for cell differentiation.
Xuehua Zhong speaks to Hope Kirwan of Wisconsin Public Radio about leaf senescence.
The upshot of the study from researchers in the Epigenetics theme at WID is another indictment of the so-called Western diet, high in saturated fats, sugar, and red meat.
Xuehua Zhong describes an epigenetic mechanism behind plant aging for the first time in a ground-breaking new paper in eLife.
WID Principal Investigator Peter Lewis honored for work on modifying histones to treat cancer.
Epigenetics researcher Peter Lewis has linked a histone mutation to a rare pediatric bone cancer, an important step in understanding and treating more common cancers.
