Dr. Bradley Cairns is the Chair of the Department of Oncological Sciences at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah. Dr. Cairns brings a unique view to the Common Fund 4D Nucleome (4DN) program as his research aims to understand the relationship between chromatin architecture and biological development and how changes that occur early in development may impact diseases that start much later in life. In order to study the impact of nuclear organization on development, Dr. Cairns uses the zebrafish as a model system, as gene transcription is highly regulated during embryo development in zebrafish compared to other model organisms. For example, Dr. Cairns can use the biological fact that in zebrafish all the cells in the developing organism are identical up until gene transcription starts when 1000 cells are developed. Dr. Cairns can then move any of these identical cells to different parts within the developing zebrafish and they will grow into cells specific for their new location, not where they came from. He is studying how these cells have the developmental potential to become any cell type and how can the nuclear organization prime cells for differences based on the environment they are in. These types of studies may serve as a road map for the potential mapping of genes in specific chromatin structures and support the idea that if we can monitor a change in genomic transcription or architecture during development, it may lead to an adverse biological outcome, such as a disease, later in life.

Dr. Cairns is a strong believer that “science is more productive and more fun when you can do it with more people”, which is why he wanted to become part of the 4DN program. He was excited to become part of a scientific community with similar interests, but is glad he can bring his unique perspective by focusing primarily on organisms as they develop instead of focusing on single cells. He feels that one of the biggest values of the 4DN program is providing access to new protocols and technologies through the joint analysis project to help with the benchmarking of scientific studies.

Learn more about Dr. Cairns 4DN project.