Prof. Mary Gehring

Professor of Biology
Core Member, Whitehead Institute
Graduate Officer

Primary DLC

Department of Biology

MIT Room: WI-561C

Areas of Interest and Expertise

Epigenetic Inheritance
Environment and the Epigenome
Plant Genetics
Seed Development
Imprinting

Research Summary

Professor Gehring's research focuses on plant epigenetics that is, the heritable information that influences cellular function but is not encoded in the DNA sequence itself. We use genetic, genomic and molecular biology approaches to study the fidelity of epigenetic inheritance and the dynamics of epigenomic reprogramming during reproduction, primarily in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. More specifically, we investigate the interplay among repetitive sequences, DNA methylation and chromatin structure in these dynamic processes.

Recent Work