| External Faculty Speaker | Friday, 25 June 2021, 11:00Add to calendarThe emergence of organization and computation in neural circuitsJulijana Gjorgjieva, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Frankfurt, GermanyHost: Hiroki AsariVirtual seminar, EMBL Rome Abstract: To generate brain circuits that are both flexible and stable requires the coordination of powerful developmental mechanisms acting at different scales, including activity-dependent synaptic plasticity and changes in single neuron properties. The brain prepares to efficiently compute information and reliably generate behavior during early development without any prior sensory experience but through patterned spontaneous activity. After the onset of sensory experience, ongoing activity continues to modify sensory circuits, and plays an important functional role in the mature brain. Using quantitative data analysis, experiment-driven theory and computational modeling, I will present a framework for how neural circuits are built and organized during early postnatal development into functional units, and how they are modified by intact and perturbed sensory-evoked activity. Inspired by experimental data from mouse and turtle cortex, I will then show how neural circuits use the resulting non-random connectivity to flexibly gate a network’s response, providing a mechanism for routing information.
Tags: Neurobiology |
| External Faculty Speaker | Friday, 8 October 2021, 11:00Add to calendarThe Awakening of the 3D GenomeJuanma Vaquerizas, MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences
London, United KingdomHost: Ana BoskovicVirtual seminar, EMBL Rome Abstract: The three-dimensional organisation of the genome plays a fundamental role in the regulation of gene expression. However, despite the recent characterisation of regulators associated to this organisation, we currently lack an understanding of how chromatin conformation is first established during development, and the molecular mechanisms that drive this process.
In the first part of my talk, I will focus on recent work in which, using Drosophila as a model system, we investigated chromatin conformation dynamics in embryos at different time points during early embryonic development. Using genetic tools and single-cell technologies, we evaluate the level of heterogeneity in chromatin conformation across different tissues at sub-kilobase resolution. This allows us to unveil that the three-dimensional organisation of chromatin at this developmental stage is likely to serve as an architectural framework to enable transcriptional regulation.
In the second part of my talk, I will turn into mammalian early embryonic development. In particular, I will focus on transposable elements, which are highly abundant in eukaryotic genomes and have been recently associated with the process of zygotic genome activation. Using genome-wide chromatin conformation maps, I will show how the Murine Endogenous Retroviral Element (MuERV-L/MERVL) family of transposable elements drives 3D chromatin reorganisation in 2-cell-embryo-like cells as well as in the mouse 2-cell embryo. This reorganisation involves the emergence of hundreds of TAD boundaries across the genome and it is associated to the upregulation of directional transcription from MERVL, which results in the activation of a subset of 2-cell embryo genes. These results have important implications for our understanding of how nuclear organisation emerges during zygotic genome activation in mammals, and how this organisation can be influenced by repetitive elements during early embryonic development. |
| EMBL - Sapienza Lecture | Friday, 19 November 2021, 11:00Add to calendarTo be announcedAndrew Pospisilik, Van Andel Institute
Grand Rapids, MI, USAHost: Mathieu Boulard/Irene BozzoniSapienza Università di Roma - Aula Odeion - Museo dell'Arte Classica - P.le Aldo Moro, 5 - Roma, EMBL Rome |
| External Faculty Speaker | Friday, 26 November 2021, 11:00Add to calendarTo be announcedMaxim Greenberg, Institut Jacques Monod,
Paris, FranceHost: Jamie HackettCNR Seminar Room, EMBL Rome |
| EMBL - Sapienza Lecture | Friday, 29 April 2022, 11:00Add to calendarTo be announcedClaire Wyart, Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epiniere CHU, Paris, FranceHost: Cornelius Gross/Andrea MeleSapienza Università di Roma - Aula Odeion - Museo dell'Arte Classica - P.le Aldo Moro, 5 - Roma, EMBL Rome Tags: Neurobiology |
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | Friday, 16 September 2022, 15:00Add to calendarTo be announcedMargaret Livingstone, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USAHost: Santiago RompaniCNR Seminar Room, EMBL Rome Tags: Neurobiology |
| EMBL - Sapienza Lecture | Friday, 21 October 2022, 11:00Add to calendarTo be announcedTony Kouzarides , Milner Therapeutics Institute and Gurdon Institute
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, United KingdomHost: Mathieu Boulard / Irene BozzoniSapienza Università di Roma - Aula Odeion - Museo dell'Arte Classica - P.le Aldo Moro, 5 - Roma, EMBL Rome |
