David Hazlerigg

Fellowship 2012

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David Hazlerigg trained as an undergraduate in Applied Biology at the University of Bath, where he first developed an interest in chronobiology (the study of biological rhythms). This led him to post-graduate study under Michael Hastings at the University of Cambridge, leading to a PhD on “The cellular actions of melatonin”. He then moved to Aberdeen, where he held a Personal Chair in the School of Biological Sciences. Since September 2013 he is Professor at the Arctic University of Tromsø, Norway. His current research focuses on the neurobiological mechanisms governing seasonal and developmental chronobiology in mammals.

Epigenetic Light

Post-doc: Cristina Saenz de Miera

How an organism’s genotype (i.e. its DNA) predicts its phenotype (i.e. what it physically becomes) is one of the great problems in biology. This process, for which C.H. Waddington coined the term “epigenetics”, underlies the entire field of developmental biology and has profound implications when considering impacts of environmental exposure during pregnancy and early life.

Despite advances in understanding how epigenetics works at the cellular level, the link to life-history consequences months to years later has remained intractable. At the level of the cells from which organisms are built, epigenetics depends on persistent chemical changes to DNA, particularly methylation, which modify how genes are expressed. There is good evidence that the environment influences DNA methylation in adult tissues, but it has proved difficult to trace such effects back to their embryonic origins.

This USIAS project will focus on the effects of light exposure during pregnancy, which programme development and adult phenotype in seasonal animals. Because light programming acts through a highly specific pathway involving the hormone, melatonin, “epigenetic light” effects in embryonic development can be traced through to biological function in the adult. This provides a new paradigm to link adult physiology to cellular epigenetic programming in an unprecedented manner.

Poster with preliminary results