The regulatory genomics group, led by Assistant Professor Mikael Marttinen, studies how gene regulation shapes disease, with a focus on why cancers become resistant to treatment. Using single-cell and spatial genomics, we map cell type-specific regulatory programs across space and time to understand how they operate within the disease microenvironment and how genetic variation influences them. Our goal is to build a genotype-to-phenotype-to-pathology framework for disease-relevant gene regulation.
Cancer. Our cancer research focuses on the regulatory processes underlying tumor pathology and treatment resistance. We investigate how cancer cells change identity under therapeutic pressure, and how these lineage plasticity programs interact with an immunosuppressive microenvironment to support the survival and evolution of resistant cell populations. We work with well-characterized patient cohorts from clinical trials, and pair single-cell and spatial epigenomic and transcriptomic assessment of patient tissue.
Neurodegeneration. In parallel, we study neurodegenerative diseases, primarily Alzheimer’s disease, aiming to map the temporal dynamics of gene regulation across brain cell types and its spatial relationship to disease pathology. By resolving how regulatory programs change as disease onsets and progresses, we aim to link cell type-specific regulation to the tissue context in which pathology emerges.
Technology development. We develop and apply single-cell and spatial genomics methods that enable dynamic, spatially resolved analysis of gene regulation. These advances underpin our work across both fields and are designed to be applied to clinical patient material.