The dark matter of the genome with Sudarshan Pinglay

On todays episode, I speak to Sudarshan Pinglay, a PhD student
from NYU medical center. Sudarshan is involved in the dark matter
project- we talk about the dark matter of the genome, where
introns, repetitive and regulatory elements reside. Sudarshan
works specifically on the HOXA locus. The Hox family of
genes pattern the head to tail axis in the developing embryo. In
mammals, there are are four separate clusters (HoxA,B,C and D).
Both space and time of Hox gene expression is colinear
to their sequence in the genome. Loss of this leads to serious
defects. 


Sudarshan talks about his wet lab and dry lab work, where he has
been using the HoxA cluster as a model to understand how the
expression of Hox genes is regulated in order to
pattern the developing nervous system. He tells us about his work
aiming to build the HoxA cluster from the ground up so
that he could manipulate the various players that have been
implicated in Hox gene regulation and understand the pattern
of Hox gene expression and embryonic development.


This is the pre print we discussed in todays episode, and more on
the dark matter genome project can be found here.


Sudarshan can be found on twitter here!