{"id":15,"date":"2019-10-30T11:02:35","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T11:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/groups\/zaugg\/?page_id=15"},"modified":"2024-04-08T12:43:49","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T12:43:49","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/groups\/zaugg\/","title":{"rendered":"Zaugg group"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Welcome to the Zaugg Group Website!<\/h1> <\/div>\n
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\n Judith Zaugg<\/a>\n <\/h3>\n \n

\n Group Leader\n <\/p>\n \n \n \n \n

\n ORCID:<\/span>\n \n 0000-0001-8324-4040\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n Edit\n <\/a>\n <\/article>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Zaugg Group combines genetic and epigenetic variation across individuals to study molecular mechanisms underlying complex traits and diseases. They develop and apply single cell technologies and computational tools to address basic and translational questions focused on gene regulatory mechanisms.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previous and current research<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A crucial part of precision medicine is to quantitatively understand the interplay of genetics, epigenetics, and environmental factors, including the cellular microenvironment. Given that the majority of disease-associated genetic variants lay in non-coding regions, and environmental factors often leave an epigenetic signature, we believe that gene regulatory processes are key to understand disease mechanisms. Our research highlights the emerging role of gene regulation<\/strong> (including enhancers <\/a> and <\/strong>transcription factors) <\/a>in disease mechanisms<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our research vision<\/strong> is to understand how cells integrate genetic information, epigenetic state, and extrinsic signals from their microenvironment, and how these layers give rise to cellular states that ultimately define complex (disease) phenotypes and response to perturbations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our approach<\/strong> is to build systems biology frameworks for studying how cells respond to defined perturbations given their molecular and epigenetic profiles. For this we develop genomics technologies and computational tools to integrate data across scales and types, including single cell multiomics (RNA\/ATAC), spatially resolved data and cryo-electron tomography. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our systems of interest <\/strong>are: (i) the bone marrow niche<\/strong>, where we aim to understand how stem and progenitor cells interact with their immune and stromal microenvironment, and how these interactions contribute to hematological malignancies and therapy response. (ii) immune cells<\/strong> and their interaction with tissue in immune system dysfunction, inflammation, infection, and cancer. Here we are interested in understanding the cell-type specific regulatory networks that contribute to disease mechanisms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future projects and goals<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We are expanding our work on disease mechanisms, gene regulatory networks, and cell-cell interactions along three lines of research:<\/p>\n\n\n\n