Dr. Dean obtained her PhD from George Washington University where she studied the protein chemistry and biosynthesis of human hemoglobin beta and gamma polypeptide subunits. She did post-doctoral studies with Dr. Robert Simpson at the NIH where she studied chromatin structure using yeast as a model system. When she established her own research group at NIH she married her interest in globin gene regulation and chromatin structure. Her lab studies the role of transcriptional enhancers and nuclear organization in gene expression, focusing on human and murine hematopoietic differentiation as the model system.
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Our lab is interested in understanding how transcriptional enhancers activate gene expression during development. Enhancers are highly cell type specific and this activation underlies how cells and tissues become different from one another and eventually form a complete organism. Enhancers are typically distant from their target genes along the linear sequence of chromosomes and one focus in the lab is on how the genome is organized in the nucleus to bring enhancers and their proper gene targets into proximity with each other. Our mechanistic studies involve genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology and computational analysis of genome wide data sets. Our studies contribute to understanding how differentiation and development are organized at the level of gene transcription.
