In faculty matters, specialization is the name of game. The areas in which individual professors conduct their research and teach are highly specific, with often no overlap between the areas of expertise of people in the same departments. Given the broad range of topics covered by the term, bioengineering is particularly complex in the array of subjects researched by faculty.
Now and then, however, these paths converge. Most recently, Jennifer Phillips-Cremins, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, and Danielle Bassett, Ph.D., Eduardo D. Glandt Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Bioengineering, collaborated on a paper published in Nature Methods. Dr. Cremins’s research has focused on genome folding, an intricate process by which DNA in the nuclei of cells creates loops that result in specific forms of gene regulation. Dr. Bassett’s area is network science and systems theory. Both professors apply their research in the area of central nervous development.
In the new paper, Drs. Cremins and Bassett, along with members of both their labs and colleagues from the Department of Genetics, developed a a graph theory-based method for detecting genome folding, called 3DNetMod, which outperformed earlier models used for the same purpose. In addition, Dr. Cremins is profiled in the same issue of Nature Methods, where she discusses how her past education and experience have resulted in her career achievements thus far.