Epigenetic Origins Of Heterogeneity And Disease (Andrew Pospisilik)

In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we caught up with Dr. Andrew Pospisilik from the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, Michigan to talk about his work on the epigenetic origins of heterogeneity and disease.

Dr. Andrew Pospisilik worked at the Max-Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg for 8 years and in 2018 he joined the Van Andel Institute as the director of its Center for Epigenetics. At the Van Andel Institute his research focuses on diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and obesity. The goal of the Pospisilik laboratory is to better understand epigenetic mechanisms of these diseases and the roles of epigenetics in disease susceptibility and heterogeneity.

 

These areas of medicine are among the most important public health challenges, with the latest estimates suggesting that they impact more than 1 billion people worldwide. Although these diverse conditions are all very different, they are now thought to be caused, at least partially, from alterations in the epigenetic mechanisms that regulate gene expression and metabolism. This interview covers recent work from the Pospisilik lab on the epigenetics of these complex diseases. 

 

References

• https://pospisiliklab.vai.org/
• J. Andrew Pospisilik, Daniel Schramek, … Josef M. Penninger (2010) Drosophila Genome-wide Obesity Screen Reveals Hedgehog as a Determinant of Brown versus White Adipose Cell Fate (Cell) DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.12.027
• Anita Öst, Adelheid Lempradl, … J. Andrew Pospisilik (2014) Paternal diet defines offspring chromatin state and intergenerational obesity (Cell) DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2014.11.005
• Kevin Dalgaard, Kathrin Landgraf, … J. Andrew Pospisilik (2016) Trim28 Haploinsufficiency Triggers Bi-stable Epigenetic Obesity (Cell) DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2015.12.025
• Tess Tsai-Hsiu Lu, Steffen Heyne, … J. Andrew Pospisilik (2018) The Polycomb-Dependent Epigenome Controls β Cell Dysfunction, Dedifferentiation, and Diabetes (Cell Metabolism) DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2018.04.013

 

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