Gene regulation & noncoding DNA
Many disease-linked variants are in noncoding DNA. I study how regulatory sequence can change gene control and cell behavior.
UCSF Ahituv Lab profileBuilding synthetic regulatory DNA.
I'm a PhD candidate in the Nadav Ahituv Lab at UCSF. Most of the genome doesn't code for protein; tucked inside that noncoding sequence is the regulatory DNA that controls when and where genes switch on, and where much disease-linked variation hides. I design and build synthetic regulatory DNA, then perturb it with CRISPR and sequence the readout, to test what that sequence actually does instead of guessing from annotation.
The Ahituv Lab
The group I get to do this work with at UCSF, here at our annual Labsgiving.
Core areas
Research focus.
How regulatory sequence affects gene control and cellular readouts.
Functional-genomics assays
Annotation says a sequence might matter. I build assays that test what it actually does, rather than inferring function from the genome alone.
Ahituv LabCRISPR perturbation readouts
I perturb regulatory elements with CRISPR and read the result out by sequencing, to find which sequences actually drive a change.
Collaborate / contactThe pivot
For years I was sure I wasn't cut out for science.
I thought of myself as the athlete, not the student. At Northern Michigan, Robert Belton, PhD, helped me connect the way I learned on the mat to the way learning works in the classroom: repeat the work, get feedback, correct one thing, and come back with a better question.
That did not make science easy, but it gave me a way in. Functional genomics appealed to me because the work is explicit: make a controlled change, read the result, and pay attention to the details that do not fit your first explanation.
The method
Functional genomics asks what a sequence does.
Naming a sequence is not the point. The question is what it does. Build it, perturb it, measure the cell, and stay honest when the readout is not what you expected.
A longer-term curiosity
The long view: how people adapt.
I want to understand how people adapt when training and recovery are studied alongside the access that makes them possible.
It is an open question, not a clinical service or a promise on this site.
Where it led
The PSPG program at UCSF.
My senior-year class photo, the Pharmaceutical Sciences & Pharmacogenomics cohort I'm finishing the PhD with.
Publications
Peer-reviewed work.
Contributor to functional-genomics studies out of the Ahituv Lab and collaborators.
Neuron · 2023
Machine learning dissection of human accelerated regions in primate neurodevelopment.
Whalen S, Inoue F, Ryu H, … Elor O, … Ahituv N, Pollard KS. Neuron 111(6):857-873.
Read on Neuron · DOICell Genomics · 2022
High-throughput characterization of the role of non-B DNA motifs on promoter function.
Georgakopoulos-Soares I, Victorino J, Parada GE, … Elor O, … Ahituv N. Cell Genomics 2(4):100111.
Read on Cell Genomics · DOIResearch or collaboration?
Working on something in functional genomics, or hiring in the space? Let's talk.