11/23 – Konstantinos Chronis, UIC

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Speaker: Konstantinos Chronis

Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, UIC

Title: Reprogramming Cell fate

Abstract: 

The ability to reprogram cell lineage specification through the activity of master regulatory transcription factors (TFs) has the potential to transform disease modeling, drug screening, and cell therapy for regenerative medicine. Specifically, the derivation of induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) from somatic tissues ushered an era of personalized medicine through the development of therapeutics tailored to individual genetic background. Yet despite the increasing prominence of iPSCs in biology and disease, reprogramming strategies still require extensive time to complete and often yield heterogeneous mixtures of cells that are ill-suited for molecular analysis and cell therapy. Hence improving current reprogramming protocols and enabling conversion to highly specified and mature cell-types is of paramount importance if we are to implement reprogramming strategies as means for regenerative medicine. In this seminar, I will discuss how our lab addresses this major biomedical challenge, by employing a combination of multi-omic approaches, genome engineering, single cell tool development and computational technologies to delineate the actions of transcription factors in reprogramming somatic genetic networks towards a pluripotent state.