The Students

Walter Alvarado, PhD
Hometown:Los Angeles, CA
Education:Cal State Long Beach
Email:walt@uchicago.edu
Dual Mentors: Juan de Pablo, Andrew Ferguson
The Big Picture
I’m combining computational physics and machine learning to elucidate chromatin remodeling and epigenetic regulation
A hallmark feature of cancer cells is their procurement of genetic and epigenetic mutations that induce genomic instability and disrupt gene expression. The organization of DNA into chromatin plays a particularly central role in maintaining genomic integrity and regulating transcription; however, the molecular mechanisms by which chromatin structure regulates gene expression remains elusive. By leveraging high-performance computing and machine learning techniques, our current research seeks to resolve the organizational principles of nucleosome folding and elucidate the higher-order structural changes induced by epigenetic modifications