News

The first preprints from our RETROGEN lab are online! Huge credit to Umut, first author on both, for driving this work!

• A single-nucleus regulatory atlas links transposable elements to adult hippocampal neurogenesis: when the adult brain makes new neurons, which parts of the genome switch on? Umut shows that about half of them are transposable elements (TEs), ancient mobile DNA reused as regulatory switches. The atlas is browsable as TENET (Transposable Elements in Neurogenesis and EPO Treatment) in the UCSC Cell Browser: explore TENET here.
• HIF1A recruits primate-specific endogenous retroviruses into the human hypoxic and immune responses: Umut shows that HIF1A, the master regulator of the cellular response to low oxygen, binds LTR7, the promoter of the primate-specific endogenous retrovirus HERVH, 80% of the copies it binds carry a hypoxia-response element, and recruits these ancient viral sequences into the human hypoxic and immune responses.

We welcome Souad, who joins the lab as a Research Engineer in bioinformatics!

We welcome Federica, who joins us from Athens as a Postdoctoral Fellow to study how HERVs shape the immune response!

The lab receives funding from the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (FRM Atlas)!

Manvendra (Manu) is appointed CNRS-Chaire de Professeur Junior (CPJ) at Université Paris Cité and launches the RETROGEN lab as joint group leader at the Institut Necker-Enfants Malades and the Institut Imagine!