Epigenetics 2022 speakers announced

Dr Justin Crocker received his PhD in 2010 from Dartmouth College. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus, he became a group leader at EMBL Heidelberg.

“The goal of my research group is to reach a level of understanding that will allow the programming and control of developmental fates, extending existing single-cell synthetic biology techniques to whole organism developmental systems. Our work uses new genome engineering technologies, synthetic biology, high-throughput robotics, and single-molecule imaging techniques in live embryos, creating a cross-cutting approach to developmental systems biology.”

Prof Julia Horsfield completed her PhD at the University of Otago in 1995. In 1996, she took up an HRC Overseas Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at the University of Adelaide. There, Julia first became acquainted with control of the cell cycle in development, and took part in forward genetic screens for cell cycle regulators in Drosophila.

Julia then moved to the University of Auckland in late 1999, where she used a forward genetic screen to identify new leukaemia genes in zebrafish. This resulted in the identification of a cell cycle protein – cohesin. Lucky enough to have the opportunity to start her own lab at the University of Otago in 2007, she has spent the last 15 years trying to understand developmental and cancer roles for the cohesin complex. During this time, she created and directs the Otago Zebrafish Facility, and was director for the Genetics Otago Research Centre from 2017-2021.

Prof Richard Young is a professor at the Whitehead Institute and MIT.  He studies gene regulation in health and disease.

Richard has served as an advisor to the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and numerous scientific societies and journals. His honours include membership of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, and Scientific American has recognized him as one of the top 50 leaders in science, technology and business. Richard has founded and advised companies in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, and currently serves on the boards of Syros Pharmaceuticals, CAMP4 Therapeutics, Omega Therapeutics, Dewpoint Therapeutics and Paratus Sciences.