Summer School and Workshops on Genome Architecture and Function

基因组结构和功能暑期学校和研讨会

• 批准号: 2015620
• 负责人: Arup Chakraborty
• 金额: $ 26.79万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-06-15 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2015620&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Summer; Workshops; Genome; Architecture; Function

Two workshops and a school will be hosted by MIT in Boston on the topic of "Genome structure and function". In the Summer of 2020 an online workshop will be held and in March, 2021 the school and workshop will be held. In the online workshop students, postdocs and researchers will give technical talks and discuss their current research. During the school and workshop leading experts will teach and discuss how cells acquire their identity. What physical mechanisms are responsible for cells with the same genome in an organism to perform different function, e.g. neuron vs liver cell? The School will be focused on a set of tutorials taught by leading experts in the field on the cutting edge of the subjects pertinent to the research area noted above, and will last two days. During the Workshop at least 20 leading experts from the US and Europe will present talks based on their current research. The list of invited speakers is comprised of both physicists and biologists. Ample time will be provided for discussions. Aapproximately 75 trainees will be students in the School, and the workshop will be attended by approximately 150 individuals from academe and industry. The Summer School and Workshop will serve to help educate the next generation of scientists (physicists and biologists) about an exciting and important topic that requires work at the convergence of physics and biology. The students in the Summer School will be drawn from both Europe and the US, and potentially other countries. Moreover, many participants in the Workshop will be trainees from the laboratories of the many universities in the Boston area, thus broadening the educational outreach of the proposed meeting further. It is important to note that, while the meeting will be focused on fundamental science, mis-regulation of nuclear processes and genome architecture impact many diseased states (e.g., cancer, autoimmunity, and ageing-related diseases). Thus, there will be a number of participants in the workshop who are scientists working in the vibrant biotechnology companies in the Boston area, which will further enhance the broader impacts of the proposed Summer School and Workshop on "Genome architecture and function". Special attention will be paid to attracting students and participants from underrepresented groups.The identity and state of a cell determines its phenotype, and thus how it interacts with other cells to regulate the functions of complex organisms. A cell's identity is determined by which regions of its genome are transcribed into proteins, and which regions are not. Cellular identity is a collective emergent property that is determined by an interplay between the structure (or architecture) of the genome inside the nucleus and nuclear functions (e.g., transcription, DNA repair), both of which are determined by cooperative interactions between many components. Thus, understanding the basic science underlying how cell identity is determined requires a convergence of approaches from physics and biology. In recent years, there has been great interest in work at this crossroad of disciplines, with the goal of developing fundamental new principles pertinent to processes that are key to understanding how complex organisms function. New experimental tools (e.g., chromatin capture methods) and theory and computer simulations (rooted in statistical physics) have begun to reveal the determinants of chromatin structure. Similarly, recent work using synergistic theory, computation, and high and super-resolution microscopy has suggested that the transcription of genes key to maintaining cell identity is regulated by the formation of active phase-separated transcriptional condensates. It is an opportune time to bring together leading physicists and biologists to discuss the most recent findings, educate trainees on these topics, and chart a path forward. The proposed Summer School and Workshop may become a landmark meeting for the field. The School and Workshops are supported by the Physics of Living Systems program in the Physics Division and the Molecular Biophysics and the Genetic Mechanisms clusters in the Molecular and Cellular Biosciences Division.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

麻省理工学院将在波士顿举办两个讲习班和一个学校，主题是“基因组结构和功能”。在2020年夏天，将举办一个在线研讨会，并在2021年3月举办学校和研讨会。在在线研讨会上，学生，博士后和研究人员将进行技术讲座并讨论他们目前的研究。在学校和研讨会期间，领先的专家将教授和讨论细胞如何获得它们的身份。什么样的物理机制是负责细胞具有相同的基因组在生物体中执行不同的功能，例如神经元与肝细胞？学校将专注于由该领域的领先专家讲授的一系列教程，这些教程涉及与上述研究领域相关的学科的前沿，并将持续两天。在研讨会期间，来自美国和欧洲的至少20位顶尖专家将根据他们目前的研究进行演讲。受邀演讲者名单由物理学家和生物学家组成。将提供充足的时间进行讨论。大约75名受训人员将是该学院的学生，大约150名来自工业界和企业界的个人将参加讲习班。暑期学校和研讨会将有助于教育下一代科学家（物理学家和生物学家）关于一个令人兴奋和重要的主题，需要在物理学和生物学的融合工作。暑期学校的学生将来自欧洲和美国，也可能来自其他国家。此外，研讨会的许多参与者将是来自波士顿地区许多大学实验室的学员，从而进一步扩大拟议会议的教育范围。重要的是要注意，虽然会议将侧重于基础科学，但核过程和基因组结构的错误调节影响了许多疾病状态（例如，癌症、自身免疫和衰老相关疾病）。因此，讲习班将有一些参加者是在波士顿地区充满活力的生物技术公司工作的科学家，这将进一步加强拟议的“基因组结构和功能”暑期学校和讲习班的广泛影响。将特别注意吸引来自代表性不足群体的学生和参与者。细胞的身份和状态决定了其表型，从而决定了它如何与其他细胞相互作用，以调节复杂生物体的功能。一个细胞的身份是由其基因组的哪些区域被转录成蛋白质，哪些区域没有。细胞身份是由细胞核内基因组的结构（或架构）与核功能（例如，转录，DNA修复），这两者都是由许多组分之间的协同相互作用决定的。因此，理解细胞身份是如何确定的基础科学需要物理学和生物学方法的融合。近年来，人们对这一学科交叉点的工作产生了极大的兴趣，其目标是开发与理解复杂生物体功能的关键过程相关的基本新原理。新的实验工具（例如，染色质捕获方法）以及理论和计算机模拟（植根于统计物理学）已经开始揭示染色质结构的决定因素。同样，最近的工作使用协同理论，计算，高分辨率和超分辨率显微镜表明，基因的转录关键维持细胞的身份是由活性相分离的转录缩合物的形成调节。这是一个很好的时机，让领先的物理学家和生物学家聚集在一起，讨论最新的发现，就这些主题教育学员，并制定前进的道路。拟议的暑期学校和讲习班可能成为该领域的一个里程碑式的会议。 学校和研讨会由物理部的生命系统物理学项目和分子生物物理学以及分子和细胞生物科学部的遗传机制集群支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。