Leonid Alex Mirny

The Mirny lab has been working on genomic analysis and biophysical modeling of various molecular systems. Our efforts are focused on characterization of higher-order chromatin structure and are aimed to reveal basic physical and biological principles that determine chromosome conformations and dynamics. Recent progress of our group led to development of both physical concepts, such as the fractal globule model of chromatin organization during interphase, as well as computational tools, such as ICE pipeline for analysis of Hi-C data. Recent achievements include characterization of bacterial chromosome in C.Caulobacter, in collaboration with the Laub lab at MIT; characterization and modeling of human mitotic chromosome, with the Dekker lab at UMass Medical School; analysis of chromosomal organization in S.Pombe with the Grewal lab at NIH.