Dr Laura O'Neill

TEACHING ACTIVITY

Currently lecture on the undergraduate Biomedical Science Degree (BMedSci) and Deputy module coordinator on a third year module (Stem cells, differentiation and disease) and provide small group teaching for both the medical and dental students.

RESEARCH ACTIVITY

Currently the group is investigating whether histone modifications are heritable during stem cell differentiation and how they are related to gene expression. DNA in eukaryotic cells is packaged by its association with histones, which are highly conserved and subjected to a plethora of post-translational modifications. Some of these modifications, for example acetylation and methylation (H3K4me3) have been correlated with active gene expression whereas other modifications (e.g. H3K9me2, H3K27me3) are enriched on silent genes. These modifications may indicate the presence of an epigenetic code. For such a code to exist it must be heritable from one cell generation to another. We are trying to understand further, which modifications are stably transmitted and which modifications reflect the transcriptional status of the gene in embryonic stem cells

RESPONSIBILITIES

Supervision of PhD, MRes and Undergraduate 3rd year students and offer summer placements for 2nd year undergraduate students to gain expertise in a working research laboratory.