GCB encompasses a group of researchers who thrive in a highly collaborative and multidisciplinary environment. Our faculty members come together to answer questions that would not be possible within a single discipline.
Featured Collaboration
Duke Center for Combinatorial Gene Regulation: A Center of Excellence in Genomic Science
Five of the seven PIs on this interdisciplinary research team are members of GCB: Tim Reddy, Andrew Allen, Greg Crawford, Charlie Gersbach and Greg Wray. They, along with PIs Warren Kibbe, professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, and Vandana Shashi, professor of pediatrics, are working to fundamenally transform the understanding of combinatorial regulatory mechanisms in the human genome. Their goal is to make combinatorial studies of the function of regulatory elements and noncoding variants routine. The culmination of this project will be the first systematic and comprehensive framework for determining the effects of combinations of regulatory elements on gene expression and downstream phenotypes. That outcome will transform human disease studies by newly prioritizing thousands of genes for targeted study and drug design. This project will also be a major step towards predicting the pathogenicity of noncoding variants that have not been observed, which is key for whole genome sequencing studies of both rate and common disease. This is the first NIH Center of Excellence in Genome Science grant Duke has received.