Daniel Blick

Joined Program: 2006
Previous Degree: B.S. Mathematics & Physics, University of Texas
Waterston Lab
blick [ a t ] u.washington.edu

Research:
Genome-wide binding analysis is a powerful tool for identifying cis-regulatory elements in the genome.  Using this approach, it is possible to identify all the sites in the genome where any particular transcription factor binds.  However, many animal transcription factors appear to have several thousand binding sites that are genuine, but have little or no biological importance.  These binding sites obscure the useful information in genome-wide binding assays by making it difficult to distinguish biologically relevant sites from irrelevant ones.

To address this challenge, I am performing parallel binding studies in C. elegans and the related species C. briggsae to identify binding events that have been conserved during evolution.  This work is focused on the transcription factor PAL-1, which specifies the identity of the posterior blastomere in C. elegans.  Because of high-quality microarray studies done in C. elegans, some information is already known about the functional targets of PAL-1, and I hope to make use of this expression data when analyzing the comparative binding results.  My strategy for ChIP in C. briggsae will use epitope-tagged transgenes, so in the intermediate term I am working to establish methods for microparticle bombardment in C. briggsae.