Dr. Karl Shpargel (Assistant Professor, Genetics) has been awarded a new R01 grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) for his project titled “Enhancer activation mechanisms in cranial neural crest osteoblast differentiation”.
This four-year grant will focus on characterizing de novo enhancer activation by chromatin profiling of primary cranial neural crest cells undergoing osteoblast differentiation. Neural crest cells deficient in chromatin-modifying machinery will be analyzed molecularly for disruption of enhancer chromatin states and to identify cooperative functions between these factors. The proposal will utilize a combination of biochemical, genetic, and low cell number genomic approaches to elucidate the role of chromatin-based enhancer activation in craniofacial disorder pathogenesis.