Emily Hodges, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Biochemistry
Associate Professor, Vanderbilt Genetics Institute
Chancellor Faculty Fellow
DNA methylation and non-coding gene regulatory variation in evolution, development and disease
Research Keywords: DNA methylation, Epigenetics, Enhancers, Electronic Health Records, genomics, DNA sequencing, cell differentiation, massively parallel reporter assays, gene regulatory evolution
Research Specialty: Epigenetics and gene regulation
Research Description: Gene expression patterns are ultimately shaped by the interplay between gene regulatory DNA sequences and epigenetic mechanisms that facilitate their control; this is fundamental to understanding the connection between genomes and cellular phenotypes in normal and disease states. Research in the Hodges lab aims to understand the relationship between DNA sequence and the epigenome in non-coding gene regulatory elements, and how they jointly influence the regulation of genes. Ultimately, our long-term mission is to understand how gene regulatory differences – at both DNA sequence and epigenetic levels – give rise to trait diversity and disease susceptibility.
Current projects in the lab address four major areas including:
- Decoding epigenetic control of gene regulation in development and disease.
- Modeling how enhancer DNA methylation records cell history and predicts cell fates.
- Integrating epigenetics and patient data to understand enhancer function.
- Dissecting modes of gene regulatory divergence between species.
Significance: Non-protein coding DNA accounts for more than 95% of the human genome, the vast majority of which remains functionally and mechanistically uncharacterized. Scattered throughout the non-coding genome are DNA sequence elements essential to processes that drive cellular specialization and function. These elements include gene regulatory DNA sequences, like enhancers and promoters, that serve as hubs for transcription factor binding to direct specific gene expression programs. But given the size of the human genome (3 billion bases of DNA), identifying these sites and examining them experimentally is a challenge, which limits our ability to connect their function to phenotypic outcomes – especially when the DNA sequence is altered. Epigenetic mechanisms, like DNA methylation, facilitate ordered, spatiotemporal control of gene regulatory elements to drive cellular phenotypes; thus, epigenetics holds the potential to bridge the genome-phenome knowledge gap.
We use interdisciplinary approaches at the interface of biochemistry, genetics and data science. In addition to the Department of Biochemistry, the lab is part of the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute, Center for Computational Systems Biology, and Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center.
Postdoctoral positions are available across all project areas. Please email your CV and three references to emily.hodges”at”vanderbilt.edu.