13.12.2019Prof. Dr. Tuncay Baubec receives ERC Consolidator Grant

Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Tuncay Baubec for obtaining an ERC Consolidator Grant for his research project «Chromatin readout: Dissecting the protein-chromatin interaction code in living cells» (ChromatinLEGO)

Tuncay Baubec, SNSF professor of epigenetics, and his team investigate how specific proteins can recognize epigenetic modifications in the DNA. Although these DNA modifications are recognized to play an important role in multiple biological processes, it is not yet fully understood how this chemical language is interpreted by regulatory factors in the cell. The project aims to identify the proteins that can read these epigenetic modifications and dissect the protein parts responsible for their specificity towards subtypes of the chemical marks. Based on this knowledge, his team will use these protein parts as building blocks to engineer proteins with novel properties that can be used to regulate epigenetic modifications and gene activity in the cell.