Jennifer Mitchell
Profile and Department: Assistant Professor, Cell & Systems Biology, University of Toronto
Lab: Mitchell Lab
Research Interests:
My research investigates how the genome is folded and organised in the nucleus and how this organisation influences regulation of gene expression. We often think about transcription as occurring on a particular gene in a linear manner whereas the nucleus is a three dimension organelle into which the genome is folded and organised. Recent work has shown that all transcription occurs at discreet compartments within the nucleus, termed transcription factories, with genes moving in and out of these compartments as they are expressed and silenced. Furthermore, distal enhancers have been shown to physically contact the genes they regulate forming tissue-specific chromatin loops. My lab uses a combination of Molecular Biology and Cellular Imaging Techniques combined with genome-wide approaches and bioinformatics analysis to investigate the mechanisms that underlie tissue-specific regulation of gene expression and genome folding.