Research Interests
Most of the genetic factors that associate with common human diseases reside in noncoding sequences. I aim to understand how specific noncoding sequences can affect the regulation of metabolic functions and contribute to human metabolic disease. I apply both computational and experimental approaches to better elucidate molecular processes involved in the development of metabolic dysfunction, having a particular interest in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and other pathologies affecting the liver. In the future, I will also explore the intricate relationship between liver cell dysfunction and the development of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
My medium-term goals are:
- to characterise the epigenomic landscape of human hepatocytes in steady-state and pathophysiological conditions deploying human hepatocyte 3D cultures coupled with transcriptomic and epigenomic profiling.
- to develop CRISPR/Cas9 functional screens to identify noncoding sequences that directly impact liver cell metabolic outputs.