Faculty Details for Dr. Kevin C. Chen
Assistant Professor
Contact Information
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Office: 227 LSB Phone: 732-445-1027 x40055 Fax: 732-445-1147 Email: kcchen@biology.rutgers.edu |
Life Sciences Bldg. Rutgers University 145 Bevier Road Piscataway, NJ, 08854 |
Research
Our group primarily uses computational and statistical techniques to study the role of gene regulation in disease, normal biological processes and evolution. We are particularly interested in post-transcriptional gene regulation mediated by two types of regulatory molecules: small regulatory RNAs (e.g. microRNAs) and RNA-binding proteins. An important future goal of our research is to understand post-transcriptional control by these different regulators within a unified framework. In addition to our computational work, we have a small wet-lab component and pursue close collaborations with experimental labs.
Our major research focus over the last few years has been the function and evolution of animal microRNAs and their binding sites. We have used techniques from comparative genomics to study the evolution of microRNAs and binding sites across different animal clades. We have also used population genomics methods and large-scale data from humans and Drosophila to understand the evolution of microRNA binding sites and design algorithms for predicting these binding sites. In addition to continuing this line of work, we are interested in a recently discovered class of small regulatory RNAs called piRNAs whose functional and evolutionary properties are still unclear.
The second research direction of the group is to develop computational and experimental techniques to dissect post-transcriptional control by RNA-binding proteins in the yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Although this species does not have microRNAs, it is experimentally tractable and provides an excellent model system for Eukaryotic gene regulation as well as population and comparative genomics. Importantly, there is a large and growing amount of genetic and biochemical data on the targets of RNA-binding proteins genome-wide in S. cerevisiae. Our goal is to develop new algorithms for predicting the binding specificity of these regulators and to test these predictions experimentally in the lab.
Selected Publications
K. Chen and N. Rajewsky. The evolution of gene regulation by transcription factors and microRNAs. Nature Reviews Genetics 8:93-103, 2007.K. Chen and N. Rajewsky. Natural selection on human microRNA binding sites inferred from SNP data . Nature Genetics 38:1452-1456, 2006.
K. Chen and N. Rajewsky. Deep conservation of microRNA-target relationships and 3' UTR motifs in vertebrates, flies and nematodes. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, Vol. 71, Regulatory RNAs, 2007.
S. Lall, D. Grun, A. Krek, K. Chen, Y. Wang et al. A genome-wide map of conserved microRNA targets in C. elegans . Current Biology 16(5):460-471, 2006