The Evolutionary Reach of the Nucleosome

Nucleosomes are the fundamental unit of eukaryotic chromatin. Seemingly universally conserved, nucleosomes rarely change by more than a handful of single-residue substitutions across evolution or in disease. While vanishingly small, such innovations can transform genome function, yet the vast majority do not overlap with any known mechanism. Using tools from synthetic and systems biology, I’m taking advantage of nature’s experiments to discover the missing mechanisms linking the nucleosome to genome regulation, deriving the first principles behind them, and building predictive models to improve human health.