Every cell in our body contains the DNA. The DNA is an instruction book composed of multiple chapters. A skeletal muscle cell has to follow the instructions written in the skeletal muscle chapters. A fibroblast cell has to follow the instructions written in the fibroblast chapters. The chapters to be read are located in separate regions from the chapter that should not be read. In this image you can see the closed DNA chapters represented in yellow, while some of the read chapters are within the red circles.

The goal of my research is to study how transcription is regulated. I wanted to locate the regions in the nucleus where genes are transcribed or silenced. Visualizing where proteins that promote or repress transcription are located and what sub-nuclear structure they form is fundamental to study gene control in health and disease contexts.