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Christopher Phiel earned his B.S. In Biology from Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA, and his Ph.D. from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He then performed postdoctoral work as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellow in the laboratory of Peter Klein at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2003, he joined the faculty at Ohio State University and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Phiel then moved to the University of Colorado Denver in the summer of 2012. He is funded by the National Institutes of Health and has served on NIH grant review panels, as well as several faculty search committees. Dr. Phiel’s research focuses on basic molecular mechanisms of signal transduction and epigenetics.|
DNA, RNA and proteins make up the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology – DNA is transcribed into RNA and RNA is translated into protein. Because DNA is the hereditary unit for life, much attention has focused on deciphering the sequence of nucleotides in numerous genomes, including humans. While these efforts have vastly enhanced our knowledge of organisms, it has also become clear that the way genes are expressed is regulated by factors that can affect DNA, yet do not change the sequence of DNA. This is known as epigenetics, or above the genome. I will discuss the types of epigenetic marks are found in our genome, and discuss how alterations of these marks, similar to DNA mutations, can play a profound role in human health and disease, with a particular focus on mental illness. |