Sarah Denny
Biophysics
Bio-X Honorary Fellow 2013/2014
Profs. William Greenleaf (Genetics), Rhiju Das (Biochemistry), and Aaron Straight (Biochemistry)

DNA in human cells is tightly compacted into a protein-DNA complex called chromatin. Condensation of chromatin is crucial to gene regulation, but the three-dimensional architecture of DNA within chromatin remains unknown. In her research, Sarah is combining high-throughput DNA sequencing with biophysical structural inference techniques to infer chromatin structure at particular genes and regulatory regions. Sarah aims to answer two fundamental questions: what are the stereotypical chromatin architectures in human cells, and how do these structures correlate with gene expression? This research will advance our understanding of the complex and nuanced layers of regulation of our genome.