 |
 |
|
|
Edith Heard obtained a bachelor's degree in genetics at Cambridge University (UK) in 1986 and carried out her Ph.D. at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (London, UK). She began her work on X-chromosome inactivation after joining Dr. Philip Avner's lab (Pasteur Institute, Paris, France) as a postdoc in 1990. In 1993 she obtained a tenured research position from the CNRS to continue her work on X inactivation. Following a sabbatical at the laboratory of Dr. David Spector (Cold Spring Harbor, USA) in 2000, she was appointed as a group leader at the Curie Institute in Paris in 2001 through a CNRS ATIP award.
Dr. Heard has a long-term interest in the mechanism of X-chromosome inactivation, the chromosome-wide silencing process that ensures dosage compensation in mammals and is mediated by the non-coding Xist transcript. Using mouse embryos and embryonic stem cells she and her co-workers have investigated both the genetic and epigenetic requirements of the X-inactivation process. She has successfully demonstrated the requirement for long-range sequences in Xist regulation and the initiation of X inactivation using a transgenesis approach in mice and ES cells. She was also one of the first in the field to demonstrate the early implication of histone modifications during the onset of X inactivation. Her more recent work has uncovered some of the remarkably dynamic epigenetic changes that accompany the onset of X inactivation during pre-implantation development. Dr. Heard's current research remains centered on the investigation of X-inactivation regulation, particularly in the context of nuclear organization, and more specifically on the role and regulation of the Xist transcript in this process.
Dr. Heard serves as a member of several French national research committees (including INSERM and the Curie Institute). A contributor to the European Union Network of Excellence “The Epigenome,” in 2005 Dr. Heard was awarded the Schlumberger Foundation prize for research and was also elected as an EMBO member. |
|
|
|
|
|
