In collaboration with Marco Foiani (IFOM - The FIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology, IT) and Caroline Uhler ( Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US), G.V. Shivashankar was organizing the 2024 EMBO workshop on Nuclear Mechanogenomics, held in Sardinia, Italy in from April 16 to April 19 2024.
This EMBO Workshop on Nuclear Mechano-Genomics was focused on developing an in-depth understanding of the coupling between mechanical micro-environment of cells and the 3D genome organization to regulate cell behavior. While our understanding of the epigenetic biochemical factors, kinases, transcription factors and chromatin remodeling enzymes has rapidly progressed, the mechano-chemical basis of such regulatory programs is only beginning to be understood. For example, the activation of transcription factors by cell mechanics, active cytoplasmic to nuclear localization of regulatory molecules, the coupling between cytoskeletal filaments with nuclear mechanical architecture, the spatio-temporal dynamics of chromatin modulated by active physical forces, mechanics of genome regulation and its maintenance, and how alterations in this mechanical architecture of the nucleus correlates with disease pathologies are all areas of intense research in recent years. This EMBO Workshop intended to enhance the discussions in this area by taking advantage of highly interdisciplinary approaches and building new connections to the single-cell genomics community as well as extending more into disease implications. It brought together physicists, engineers, computer scientists and biologists to understand the coupling between nuclear mechanics and genome regulation and its impact on diseases.
This EMBO Workshop is an outcome of our successful “Mechano-Genomics Seminar Series” that was started during the pandemic.