Mia Levine recently joined the Biology faculty after completing her postdoctoral research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Members of the Levine Lab bring an evolutionary lens to the study of chromatin biology and epigenetics. Eukaryotic DNA is packaged into distinct chromatin compartments that mediate the expression, stability, and faithful inheritance of genetic and epigenetic information. These chromatin compartments support essential, highly conserved functions; however, the chromatin proteins that define them are strikingly unconserved. Protein domains and residues evolve rapidly and even wholesale turnover of chromatin protein repertoires between closely related species is common. Using evolutionary genomics, cell biology, transgenics, and classical genetics, the Levine Lab investigates the biological causes and functional consequences of this paradox—evolutionarily fluid chromatin proteins that support conserved, essential functions.
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