Research Interests
Ultimate research goal. Identify and target key epigenomic aberrations to cure human diseases
Main research tools. ChIP-seq, NOMe-seq, DNA methylation, RNA-seq, Hi-C, CRISPR-based genome & epigenome editing
Overview. Understanding gene regulation in normal and diseased cells has been the central question for the Rhie lab. The Rhie lab focuses on four research areas (Genome Wide Association Studies, Regulatory Elements, Chromatin Interactions, and Transcription Factors) to answer the question.
1. GWASs. Working together with epidemiologists and molecular biologists, we finemapped and annotated risk loci with epigenomic maps in different cell types to identify underlying mechanisms that explain how single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) affect disease risk.
2. Regulatory elements. Using modified histone marks (e.g. H3K4me3 for promoter, H3K4me1 and H3K27ac for enhancer, H3K27me3 and H3K9me3 for repressed regions), CTCF for insulator, and DNA methylation, we identify and characterize regulatory elements that are differentially activated between normal and diseased cells.
3. Chromatin interactions. Using chromatin conformation capture (3C)-derived methods such as in situ Hi-C, we study how chromatin interactions between regulatory elements and 3D chromatin structure lead to transcriptome changes.
4. Transcription factors. We characterize the role of transcription factors that bind to DNA elements and regulate numerous genes in a cell-type specific manner using epigenomic approaches (e.g. ChIP-seq, NOMe-seq, RNA-seq, knockdown, CRISPR/Cas9 system).