PhD Raffaele Teperino | IFB AdiposityDiseases

Focus of work

Differently from the genome that changes slowly as a result of random mutations and natural selection, the epigenome changes faster in response to environmental stimuli. Environment-induced epigenetic changes are stable and heritable, thus influencing organismal phenotypic trajectories and disease development in the exposed and upcoming generations.
The overarching goal of our group is to understand the epigenetic contribution to metabolic control within and across generations. We aim to shed light on the molecular mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance in mammals, and identify novel mediators of soma-to-germline information transfer.
To this aim, we couple mouse genetics and gene-editing technologies to environmental perturbations and systemic phenotyping to understand the physiology of epigenetic inheritance; and complement them with state-of-the-art genomics and epigenomics to highlight its molecular underpinnings.