Hanne Puype
Doctoral student – Lab for Computational Biology, Integromics and Gene Regulation (CBIGR) - Department of Biomedical Molecular Biology, Faculty of Sciences & Department of Biomolecular Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, UGent
Principal investigator: prof. Vanessa Vermeirssen (PhD)
Research focus
Transposable elements (TEs), or jumping genes, encompass 50% of the human genome. However, they are mostly ignored and regarded as ‘junk DNA’. Mounting evidence points to the fact that TEs play a role in brain development and the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disease. TEs cause rewiring of gene regulatory networks through TE transposition, TE expression and/or TE enhancer activity, in a cell-type-specific way. However, the exact regulatory mechanisms are still unknown. Currently, the suboptimal performance of high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics is hampering the study of TE activity.
In my PhD, I aim unravel the role of TEs in healthy brain development and in neuropsychiatric disease, with a focus on TE-mediated gene regulatory networks and computational tools for the detection of TE activity from multi-omics data.
Biography
In June 2022 I graduated from Ghent University as a Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences. I received the Price Professor Joël Vandekerckhove for best master's dissertation titled ‘Regulatory networks in neuroinflammatory disorders: Alzheimer's disease and major depressive disorder’ with Prof. Vermeirssen as promoter.
In October 2022 I started as a PhD fellow in the CBIGR lab, funded by a BOF PhD fellowship.
Contact & links
- Lab address CBIGR: Zwijnaarde-Technologiepark 71, 9052 Ghent
- Lab address Medicine and Health Sciences: C. Heymanslaan 10, ingang 34 (2MRB1), 9000 Ghent
- CBIGR lab
- X (former Twitter)
- Single-cell Network Ghent (SING)
- Hanne Puype is interested to receive invitations for presentations or talks