Mcginty Lab
Principal Investigator: Robert Mcginty
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY The nucleosome is the fundamental unit of chromatin and a vibrant signaling hub for our genomes. Combinatorial patterns of histone post-translational modifications (PTMs) and chemical modifications to DNA establish local epigenetic landscapes that regulate genomic processes, including gene expression, replication, and DNA damage repair. As genomic processes are critical to the maintenance of cellular identity and genomic integrity, they are frequently misregulated in diverse diseases like cancer and developmental disorders. Despite clear relevance to fundamental molecular biology and human health, the molecular mechanisms through which histone PTMs are curated by nuclear enzymes that write and erase the PTMs in a nucleosome context are still largely unknown. Moreover, outside of a small number of test cases, it is unclear how combinations of histone PTMs recruit readers of histone PTMs to specific genomic loci. These knowledge gaps limit the development of therapeutics targeting chromatin signaling for cancer or other diseases. We address these fundamental questions using designer nucleosomes with chemically defined sets of histone PTMs which allow us to explore how…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R35GM133498-08: Molecular Mechanisms of Chromatin Recognition (2026)
- 5R35GM133498-07: Molecular Mechanisms of Chromatin Recognition (2025)
- 2R35GM133498-06: Molecular Mechanisms of Chromatin Recognition (2024)
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