People

With a research program that applies chemical approaches to nucleic acid biology, Pete Dedon's research group has developed a variety of analytical and informatic platforms for basic and translational research in epigenetics and epitranscriptomics in infectious disease and cancer. One platform coordinates new sequencing technologies, comparative genomics, and mass spectrometry to discover novel epigenetic marks, such as phosphorothioate, hypoxanthine, and 7-deazaguanine modifications in bacterial and bacteriophage genomes in the human microbiome. Pete and Eric Alm were recently awarded an NIH Transformative Grant to pursue this work. In the realm of the epitranscriptome– the dozens of modified ribonucleosides in all forms of RNA – Pete's team has developed and applied systems-level analytics to discover a mechanism of translational regulation of gene expression in bacteria, parasites, mammalian cells and humans. This response mechanism coordinates stress-specific reprogramming of 40-50 different tRNA modifications with alternative genetic information consisting of biased used of synonymous codons in families of stress response genes. The net result is selective translation of codon-based gene families essential for survival or phenotypic change. Pete and colleagues are leveraging these discoveries to develop novel antimicrobial and resistance-reversing agents, new enzymatic tools for biotechnology, and new methods for industrial microbiology and protein production. 

‍