Chromatin is a complex of DNA and protein found in eukaryotic cells. The primary function is to package long DNA molecules into more compact, denser structures. This prevents the strands from becoming tangled and also plays important roles in reinforcing the DNA during cell division, preventing DNA damage, and regulating gene expression and DNA replication. During mitosis and meiosis, chromatin facilitates proper segregation of the chromosomes in anaphase; the characteristic shapes of chromosomes visible during this stage are the result of DNA being coiled into highly condensed chromatin.
A nucleosome is the basic structural unit of DNA packaging in eukaryotes. The structure of a nucleosome consists of a segment of DNA wound around eight histone proteins and resembles thread wrapped around a spool. The nucleosome is the fundamental subunit of chromatin. Each nucleosome is composed of a little less than two turns of DNA wrapped around a set of eight proteins called histones, which are known as a histone octamer. Each histone octamer is composed of two copies each of the histone proteins H2A, H2B, H3, and H4.
In molecular biology, a histone octamer is the eight-protein complex found at the center of a nucleosome core particle. It consists of two copies of each of the four core histone proteins. The octamer assembles when a tetramer, containing two copies of H3 and two of H4, complexes with two H2A/H2B dimers. Each histone has both an N-terminal tail and a C-terminal histone-fold. Each of these key components interacts with DNA in its own way through a series of weak interactions, including hydrogen bonds and salt bridges. These interactions keep the DNA and the histone octamer loosely associated, and ultimately allow the two to re-position or to separate entirely.
Carlos José Bustamante is a Peruvian-American scientist. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thomas Robert Cech is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA. He found that RNA can not only transmit instructions, but also that it can speed up the necessary reactions.
The Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry is a research institute of the Max Planck Society located in Martinsried, a suburb of Munich. The institute was founded in 1973 by the merger of three formerly independent institutes: the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, the Max Planck Institute of Protein and Leather Research, and the Max Planck Institute of Cell Chemistry.
Roger David Kornberg is an American biochemist and professor of structural biology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Kornberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2006 for his studies of the process by which genetic information from DNA is copied to RNA, "the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription."
Carl Wu is a Chinese-American scientist, and a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of biology, molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University. He is active in the fields of chromatin and gene expression.
Dame Jean Olwen Thomas, is a Welsh biochemist, former Master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and Chancellor of Swansea University.
FACT is a heterodimeric protein complex that affects eukaryotic RNA polymerase II transcription elongation both in vitro and in vivo. It was discovered in 1998 as a factor purified from human cells that was essential for productive, in vitro Pol II transcription on a chromatinized DNA template.
Daniela Bargellini Rhodes FRS is an Italian structural and molecular biologist. She was a senior scientist at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, where she worked, and later studied for her PhD under the supervision of Nobel laureate Aaron Klug. Continuing her work under the tutelage of Aaron Klug at Cambridge, she was appointed group leader in 1983, obtained tenure in 1987 and was promoted to senior scientist in 1994. Subsequently, she served as director of studies between 2003 and 2006. She has also been visiting professor at both "La Sapienza" in Rome, Italy and the Rockefeller University in NY, USA.
The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is intended to recognize breakthrough research in pure or applied life science research that is distinguished by its excellence, originality and impact on our understanding of biological systems and processes. The award may recognize a specific contribution or series of contributions that demonstrate the nominee's significant leadership in the development of research concepts or their clinical application. Particular emphasis will be placed on research that champions novel approaches and challenges accepted thinking in the biomedical sciences.
Tracy L. Johnson is the Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Presidential Endowed Chair in the Life Sciences and Professor of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is also a professor of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In May 2020, she was named Dean of the UCLA Division of Life Sciences.
Susan M. Gasser is a Swiss molecular biologist. From 2004 to 2019 she was the director of the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, where she also led a research group from 2004 until 2021. She was in parallel professor of molecular biology at the University of Basel until April 2021. Since January 2021, Susan Gasser is director of the ISREC Foundation, which supports translational cancer research. She is also professor invité at the University of Lausanne in the department of fundamental microbiology. She is an expert in quantitative biology and studies epigenetic inheritance and genome stability. Recipient of multiple swiss and European awards, she was named member of the US Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Yi Zhang is a Chinese-American biochemist who specializes in the fields of epigenetics, chromatin, and developmental reprogramming. He is a Fred Rosen Professor of Pediatrics and professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, a senior investigator of Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also an associate member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, as well as the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is best known for his discovery of several classes of epigenetic enzymes and the identification of epigenetic barriers of SCNT cloning.
H3K56ac is an epigenetic modification to the DNA packaging protein Histone H3. It is a mark that indicates the acetylation at the 56th lysine residue of the histone H3 protein.
Yamini Dalal is an Indian American biochemist specialized in chromatin structure and epigenetic mechanisms. She is a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute.
Beat Fierz is a Swiss chemist and molecular biologist, currently an Associate Professor at the EPFL. His research is focused on understanding dynamic processes of large molecular systems, particularly in chromatin regulation.
Timothy John Richmond is a Swiss/American molecular biologist, biochemist, and biophysicist.
H3T45P is an epigenetic modification to the DNA packaging protein histone H3. It is a mark that indicates the phosphorylation the 45th threonine residue of the histone H3 protein.
