Dr. Jonathan Gewirtz

This project seeks to identify epigenetic alterations in gene transcription, driven by chromatin alterations that occur following opiate administration in rats. The researchers will do so by extracting and purifying tissue samples taken from the nucleus accumbens, a brain structure that plays a primary role in addiction. Expression levels of coding and noncoding RNA transcripts throughout the genome will be assayed using RNA-seq. ChIP-seq will be conducted on samples derived from the same brain region to assay the trimethylation status of two specific chromatin lysine residues. Supercomputing capacity is required for storage and analysis of these very large biological datasets.