News

July 2025

Hidden Enhancers

Hiding in plain sight – how close are we to mapping ALL 🧬enhancers🧬 in the genome?Our new paper by Mannion et al. takes a systematic look at "hidden enhancers" and why they remain so hard to find. With @mosterwalder.bsky.social, @jlopezrios.bsky.social & many morewww.nature.com/articles/s41…

— Axel Visel (@axelvisel.bsky.social) 2025-08-08T18:09:03.454Z
July 2025

A Range Extender for Enhancers

Getting the message across from a distance:🧬REX🧬 is a “Range EXtender” element that can turn short-range into looooooooooooong-range enhancersGreat collaboration led by @gracebower.bsky.social and @evgenykvon.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41…@biosci.lbl.gov @berkeleylab.lbl.gov

— Axel Visel (@axelvisel.bsky.social) 2025-07-02T16:02:38.970Z
June 2025

Cracking the Genome’s Switchboard: How AI Helps Decode Gene Regulation

NEWS: 🧬 A single DNA letter could rewrite the story of human development. New research from our Lab and @stanforduniversity.bsky.social reveals how tiny mutations in enhancers – non-coding regions that regulate gene activity – can cause big biological changes. 🧪

— Berkeley Lab (@berkeleylab.lbl.gov) 2025-06-18T16:14:05.456Z
June 2025

Exploring the Functional Anatomy of Enhancers

Textbooks: “Enhancers are just a bunch of TFBSs”But how do they REALLY work?New paper with many contributors here @berkeleylab.lbl.gov, @anshulkundaje.bsky.social, @anusri.bsky.social A 🧵 (1/n)Free access link: rdcu.be/erD22

— Axel Visel (@axelvisel.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T17:55:02.360Z
January 2025

New ENCODE Preprint

Now available as preprint:The ENCODE 4 expanded registry of regulatory elements- 2.35M 🧍 human cCREs- 927k 🐭 mouse cCREswww.biorxiv.org/content/10.1…Led by @moorejille.bsky.social, this preprint summarizes data and analyses generated by hundreds of contributors across ENCODE 4

— Axel Visel (@axelvisel.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T20:35:45.626Z
December 2024

Gene-Enhancer Interactions in Mouse Embryonic Tissues

How do 250k regulatory sequences coordinate 15k genes in mammalian development?Just out: A genomic evidence board to decode the chaos by mapping enhancer-gene interactions across embryonic mouse tissuesNew resource with Miao Yu, Ming Hu, Bing Ren, and more.www.nature.com/articles/s41…

— Axel Visel (@axelvisel.bsky.social) 2024-12-17T14:36:08.478Z
December 2024

A Small Enhancer for a Giant Gene

Titin is massive in size – at 3,800kD it’s the largest protein in your body and really important for heart function.In a new paper, led by Yuri Kim and the Seidman lab, we describe an enhancer critical for normal Titin expression.Here is the overview (1/n)Paper: www.jci.org/articles/vie…

— Axel Visel (@axelvisel.bsky.social) 2024-12-18T21:04:22.951Z
August 2024

Successful Poster Presentation by Tonana Ben

Our summer intern from the Arizona State University-Berkeley Lab STEM Pathways program, Tonana Ben, successfully presented her poster at the WD&E poster session.

December 2021

New Mouse Methods Paper

November 2021

Ultraconserved Elements – New Review Published

For details, see the tweetorial:

November 2020

Len Pennacchio Named AAAS Fellow

Len Pennacchio was one of nine Berkeley Lab scientists named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This lifetime honor recognizes scientists, engineers, and innovators for their distinguished achievements in research and other disciplines toward science advancement. Read more

August 2020

Interpreting the Human Genome’s Instruction Manual

Berkeley Lab bioscientists are part of a nationwide research project, called ENCODE, which has generated a detailed atlas of the molecular elements that regulate our genes. This enormous resource will help all human biology research moving forward. Read more

October 2019

Transcriptional Control in Development and Disease Workshop

Axel will be co-organizing this workshop in Baeza, Spain

Download poster here – Register here

July 2019

Cause of Deadly Digestive Disease in Children Revealed

Nearly ten years ago, Lab geneticist Len Pennacchio was asked to help solve the mystery of a rare inherited disease that caused extreme, and sometimes fatal, chronic diarrhea in children. Following an arduous investigative odyssey, a genetic explanation for the disease has been discovered. Read more

October 2016

What a Legless Mouse Tells Us About Snake Evolution

Engineering animals with CRISPR can help biologists to understand the genes behind some of evolution’s most dramatic changes. – News article by Ed Yong in the Atlantic, featuring our latest paper on evolution of limb enhancers in snakes. Read the full Atlantic article here.

October 2013

Faces are sculpted by ‘junk DNA’

Researchers have started to figure out how DNA fine-tunes faces. In experiments on mice, they have identified thousands of regions in the genome that act like dimmer switches for the many genes that code for facial features, such as the shape of the skull or size of the nose. – News article in The Guardian about our latest paper on craniofacial enhancers. Read the full Guardian article or the original paper. Or just watch the 3 minute video summary.