Prof. Rudolf Jaenisch

The long-range goals are to understand epigenetic regulation of gene expression in mammalian development and disease. An important question is to understand the different epigenetic conformations that distinguish differentiated cell states and to define strategies to transdifferentiate one differentiated cell type into another. Embryonic stem cells are of major significance because they have the potential to generate any cell type in the body and, therefore, are of great interest for regenerative medicine. A major focus of our work is to understand the molecular mechanisms that allow the reprogramming of somatic cells to an embryonic pluripotent state and to use the potential of patient specific pluripotent cells to study complex human diseases.