Research group Meister - Cell Fate and Nuclear Organization

Our research

Our body is composed of billions of cells, each of them achieving a specialized task. For example, our flat skin cells ensure protection from external physical and chemical aggressions whereas our rod-like photoreceptor cells in the eye allow light to be sensed in our environment. Despite this variability in structure and function, almost all cells in our body have exactly the same genome, the DNA sequence where our genetic information is stored. As an analogy, one could think of the genome as the hard disk of a computer, where every program for each cell type is stored but in each cell only one of these programs is executed.

Key words:

Epigenetics, development, cell fate, nuclear organization, C. elegans

University of Bern | Institute of Cell Biology | Baltzerstrasse 4 | CH-3012 Bern