Research Expertise and Interest

genetics, genomics, biophysics

Research Description

Hernan Garcia is an associate professor in the the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, and the Department of Physics. 
Research focus: In development a single cell goes through a series of repeated divisions and these cells read the program encoded in their DNA in order to become familiar cell types such as those found in muscle, liver or our brains. The goal of the Garcia lab is to uncover the rules behind these decisions with the objective of predicting and manipulating developmental programs from just looking at DNA sequence. In order to reach this predictive understanding they combine physics, synthetic biology and new technologies to query and control developmental decisions in real time at the single cell level in the fruit fly embryo.