Christopher Gregg

The Gregg lab is a neurogenetics lab working to uncover new knowledge and technologies to improve brain function and reduce the risk for developing mental illnesses and other disorders. Our highly interdisciplinary research program merges genomics, epigenetics, evolutionary biology and big data analysis methods with neuroscience and behavior analysis. Trainees develop expertise in genomics, bioinformatics, phylogenomics, genome engineering, molecular biology, programming, statistical modeling, imaging, disease biology, biotechnology, neurobiology and behavior analysis.

The Gregg Lab has three unique areas of focus:

1. Do epigenetic mechanisms differentially shape the expression of the maternal and paternal gene copies (alleles) that offspring inherit from their parents? This work is contributing to a new picture of how genes and the environment interact to shape offspring phenotypes and disease risks and inspiring new approaches to disease prognostics.
2. We are using new phylogenomics approaches to uncover putative master functional regulatory elements in the mammalian genome that shape social behaviors, cancer risk, motivated behaviors and metabolic phenotypes.
3. We have developed 3D printing, computer vision and machine learning technologies to perform high throughput behavioral screening in mice. We are using this approach to learn how specific regulatory elements and epigenetic mechanisms impact offspring behavioral development and brain function.