Sérgio de Almeida Lab

Chromatin & Epigenetics

Our research focuses on the mechanisms that control chromatin dynamics during transcription and DNA damage repair and how they coordinate with the processes that safeguard the genome integrity. Our general aims are twofold: first, we aim at investigating molecular aspects of the different stages of the transcription cycle, focusing on pre-mRNA processing and chromatin modification events; in addition, we study the molecular mechanisms that sense, signal and repair DNA damage.

To this end, we employ a multidisciplinary research strategy that combines experimental tools and approaches from areas such as cell and molecular biology, biochemistry, live-cell microscopy, next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics. A major focus of our research is to understand how changes in transcription, pre-mRNA processing, chromatin modification and DNA damage response are linked to the development of human diseases such as cancer.