Chris Tuggle, Distinguished Professor, Iowa State University, presents "Epigenetics of pig immune cells to identify cell-type specific regulatory elements".

Dr. Tuggle is a Professor of Molecular Genetics in the Department of Animal Science at ISU. Dr. Tuggle received a BA from St. Cloud State University, USA, and his PhD from the University of Minnesota, USA. He then completed postdoctoral training in developmental genetics at Columbia University and the University of Southern California, before joining Iowa State University as faculty. His research program is centered on understand the function of the porcine genome to understand genetic and epigenetic control of immune response as well as enhance our ability to use genetic improvement through selective breeding. Current research projects include leading a multi-institutional effort to map functional elements of the porcine genome through generating epigenetic resource data, with an emphasis on the immune system. A second project focuses on developing a novel severe combined immune deficient pig line for understanding pig immunology and as a biomedical model in regenerative medicine. He is also co-leading a consortium of universities and agencies to develop a plan to accelerate the improvements in using genomic data to predict phenotypes in agricultural plants and animals.

Host: Huaijun Zhou (hzhou@ucdavis.edu)