Bianca Schmitt

I did my Undergraduate degree in Genetics at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand. My research project was in the lab of Chris Brown in the Biochemistry Department. His lab is interested in regulatory elements in mRNAs that control gene expression and my project was looking at specific regulatory elements in the 3’UTR of the proto-oncogene junB.

After finishing my degree in New Zealand I went back to Germany and did my Masters thesis in Physical Anthropology at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, in the Human Genetics Department in the lab of Ulrich Zechner. My project investigated underlying genetic causes in hearing impaired patients, especially looking for CNVs associated with hearing disruption in these patients. I then joined the Odom group at the CRI in Cambridge and started my PhD project.

The Odom lab is interested in the evolution of functional elements that control gene expression. These functional elements consist of different classes: DNA-binding proteins known as transcription factors, which control gene transcription, and non-coding RNAs such as microRNAs. These regions of the genome while being transcribed do not code for proteins, and regulate the level of protein post-transcriptionally.

The Odom laboratory has studied the evolution of transcription using primary liver tissue from different species of mammal and applying ChIPseq in a comparative genomics approach. Surprisingly, regulation through transcription factors changes much more rapidly than previously anticipated between mammals.

As a next step, this project will be investigating the origin, regulation and evolution of microRNAs using a similar comparative functional genomics approach. The aim of this project is to evaluate the variation in miRNA regulation in different mammals to gain more insight into the evolution of gene regulation.