Benjamin Tapon

Benjamin is a PhD student at Queen Mary, University of London.

His project title is: how is DNA methylation deposited on the DNA? Revealing the mechanism using evolutionary epigenome engineering approaches.

"Cytosine DNA methylation is a widespread epigenetic mark with crucial roles in gene regulation in animals. However, we do not know what determines the drastically different methylation patterns across animal linages. In my project, we want to address this question by taking an epigenome engineering approach.

Using mammalian stem cells, we will express evolutionary distant DNA methyltransferases to deposit synthetic methylation patterns. This will help us dissect the relative importance of genetic and trans effects on the methylation deposition. By comparing these patterns to patterns in healthy and diseased cells, we will determine the causes of methylation variation and misregulation."