Debelouchina Lab
Principal Investigator: Galia Debelouchina
Institution: University of California San Diego (La Jolla, CA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students
Research Focus
Project Summary The laboratory led by PI Galia Debelouchina has the following long-term objectives: 1) The development of structural biology methodology to study complex and dynamic biological assemblies in vitro, and 2) The extension of these methodologies for structural biology investigations in the cellular environment. Our methodology development combines solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy with state- of-the-art chemical biology tools for the comprehensive description of biological systems both in vitro and in cells. Over the next five years, we plan to accomplish the following goals: 1) Elucidate the molecular basis of heterochromatin formation and regulation. Heterochromatin compartments are associated with gene silencing and repetitive DNA sequences, and their formation is a vital step in cell differentiation and development. Recent hypotheses suggest that they are formed through a process called liquid-liquid phase separation and that a central player in this process is the heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) family. Our goal is to understand how HP1 proteins orchestrate a complex network of interactions with each other, with chromatin, and with other pro…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R35GM138382-07: Structural biology of chromatin in vitro and in cells (2026)
- 2R35GM138382-06: Structural biology of chromatin in vitro and in cells (2025)
- 5R35GM138382-05: Structural biology of chromatin in vitro and in cells (2024)
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