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PI Rebecca Berrens awarded 8-year Wellcome Trust Career Development Award
Rebecca Berrens, principal investigator of the Transposon Group based in IDRM, has been awarded the Wellcome Trust Career Development grant for eight years. The award will fund the advancement of research into locus-specific transposable elements in development.
About Transposon Group research
Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile genetic elements that can affect gene expression through their own regulatory sequences. TE expression has been associated with various developmental disorders. Nevertheless, the role of TEs in development is not fully understood.
Understanding the function of TEs in development requires studying locus-specific TE expression in single cells. However, due to the repetitive nature of TEs, this has been challenging. To address this challenge, Rebecca Berrens has developed a novel method called CELLO-seq, which uses long-read single-cell RNA sequencing to study locus-specific TE expression in individual cells.
The principal investigator of the Transposon Group proposes to employ CELLO-seq and a wide range of functional tools to investigate the function of locus-specific TE expression in development and cell fate decision. The group will test specific hypotheses about the role of locus-specific TE expression in mouse preimplantation and embryonic stem cells. First, they will evaluate TE expression heterogeneity between cells. Second, they will study deterministic TE expression within cells. Third, the group will test the function of TE expression in regulating genes important for cell fate decision.
The results will provide novel insights into the role of TEs in development, revealing regulatory mechanisms that govern cell fate decision, with implications for stem cell, developmental, and regenerative biology.
About the Wellcome Trust Career Development Award
The Wellcome Trust Career Development Award provides funding for mid-career researchers who have the potential to be international research leaders. The scheme aims to develop their research capabilities, drive innovative programmes of work, and deliver significant shifts in understanding that could improve human life, health, and wellbeing. For more information, visit the official Wellcome website.