Webinars
Transcription webinar
May 28, 2026 | 10–11:10 a.m. Eastern | Free registration required
The monthly ASBMB Transcription Webinars aim to facilitate knowledge exchange and collaboration among researchers in the fields of transcription, chromatin and epigenetics. Each session will feature presentations from two or three leading experts who will share their latest research on transcriptional regulation by chromatin and RNA polymerase.
The series is organized by Kai Ge, chief of the Adipocyte Biology & Gene Regulation Section at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and Yan Jessie Zhang, distinguished professor in biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin.
Speakers
Acetyltransferase complexes in epigenetic mechanisms linked to gene regulation and oncogenesis
Jacques Cote, Laval University Cancer Research Center
Our research aim is to understand chromatin dynamics associated with gene regulation and DNA repair. We study protein complexes that control acetylation and methylation of histones, and the composition of chromatin. We dissect the molecular mechanisms of epigenetics, in which signals to chromatin mark different genomic loci and are read by effectors to translate a biological response. Our work has characterized the structure and function of several protein complexes, identifying their intrinsic recognition modules for the epigenetic histone signature. Accurate writing and reading of these epigenetic marks lead to changes in chromatin dynamics, in a targeted manner within the genome, and we study how this process is subverted in specific cancers.
Mechanisms of long-range enhancer-promoter looping
Anders Hansen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Hansen lab is broadly interested in 3D genome structure and function, and develops new super-resolution and single-molecule imaging methods to track chromatin looping, transcription and protein dynamics in living cells, new high-resolution 3D genomics methods to capture looping interactions as well as new computational approaches. Current application areas of interest include the dynamics of chromatin looping and transcription, how misfolding of the genome causes disease, connecting disease-associated variants to target genes, the basic mechanisms of 3D genome folding, the selectivity rules between enhancers and promoters, machine learning, and synthetic 3D genome biology. During the seminar, I will share our recent and ongoing work dissecting the mechanisms of distal gene regulation with a focus on enhancer–promoter looping.
