Viny Lab

Epigenetic Regulation and Chromatin Structure in Normal and Malignant Hematopoiesis

The Viny laboratory studies epigenetic regulation in normal blood formation and in blood cancers. We aim to understand the role of altered chromatin architecture as a regulator of gene expression/gene silencing. Our prior work has illustrated that transcription factor activity is influenced by the structural topology of its potential binding sites such that both TF expression and DNA accessibility/chromatin state act as nonredundant and non-hierarchical controls of transcriptional programs. The balance of hematopoietic stem cell self-renewal with differentiation in hematopoietic stem cell function relies on this principle which we aim to engineer for therapeutic purposes. Employing reversible genetic mouse models, primary patient samples, and state-of-the-art high-throughput epigenomic/transcriptional assays for assessing 3-dimensional chromatin structure we aim to define the epigenetic determinates of hematopoietic stem cell fate and reprogram the epigenetic dysregulation in the malignant context.