PhD defence T. (Tom) van Schaik

Dissertation in short:

Genome organization and gene regulation are important contributors to cell identity and normal behavior, but remain poorly understood. In this PhD thesis, I have studied how the genome is organized around nuclear substructures, such as the nuclear lamina and nucleoli, and what the functional role is of this organization. To do this, I have developed a new experimental methodology to profile where these structures interact with the genome, and used this to test the dynamics during the cell cycle and after various perturbation experiments. Overall, I have identified several factors that modulate nuclear positioning of the genome, and correlated nuclear positioning at the substructures with various functional consequences.