SEMINAR ; Pr Salvatore SPICUGLIA - Dissection of cis-regulatory elements with dual promoter and enhancer function

Salvatore Spicuglia is a group leader since 2011 at the TAGC, a multidisciplinary institute affiliated to the INSERM and Aix-Marseille University. He is an expert in mammalian transcriptional regulation. His lab focuses on regulatory mechanisms at lymphoid-specific genes, as well as general aspect of epigenomic changes between normal and cancer cells. His lab recently implemented high-throughput reporter assays to quantitatively access enhancer activity in mammals and used the method to address important questions regarding enhancer biology. Recent works in his lab has shed lights on a subset of gene promoters, termes Epromoters, which works as bona fide enhancers and regulate distal gene expression. He is involved in several national (ANR, INCA, etc) and international projects (H2020, Ecos-Nord). As coordinator of the ITN Enhpathy, he is looking forward of novel genetic and epigenetic mechanisms involved in the dysregulation of enhancers in diverse pathologies.