Nick’s lab studies how DNA is folded up with proteins to form chromatin inside mammalian cells. Although this has been studied this for many years it is a big problem, mainly because chromatin is a massive macromolecular complex that makes it very difficult to study. Chromatin is central to understanding many nuclear processes and recent next generation sequencing projects have identified many mutations in chromatin proteins in cancer. Surprisingly his group has found that an abundant nuclear protein, SAF-A, that is often mutated in neurodevelopmental disorders is a regulator of chromatin folding and packaging in the nucleus.
You can also find recent articles of his lab:
Gene structure heterogeneity drives transcription noise within human chromosomes (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.09.495447v1)
Nuclear RNA forms an interconnected network of transcription-dependent and tunable microgels(https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.06.16.599208v2)
