Zeba Wunderlich

Biography:

Wunderlich and her lab team are studying gene regulatory networks, which are required for virtually every process in an animal from development to immunity. Specifically, they are exploring how a gene regulatory network’s tasks influence its architecture, robustness, and evolvability. To probe these questions, Wunderlich uses two model systems: the Drosophila early embryonic patterning system and the Drosophila innate immune response. In both systems, her team pairs imaging-based and genomic measurements of gene expression with statistical and physically-based computational models to explore questions of gene regulatory network function. They exploit naturally occurring sequence variation between individuals and species as a tool to measure how changes in regulatory DNA affect transcriptional regulation.

Research Interests:

regulation of gene expression, design principles of enhancers, systems biology, developmental biology, innate immunology