Hiroshi Kimura is a professor working for the Department of Biological Sciences at Tokyo Institute of technology. He specializes in cell biology, epigenetics, and Gene Regulation.
Research
In multicellular organisms, including human, all cells are derived from a single fertilized egg and so essentially harbor the same genetic information. During development and differentiation, specific gene subsets are expressed in specific cell types. As DNA is wrapped around histones to form nucleosomes in eukaryotes, gene expression is regulated at chromatin levels in addition to transcription factors that bind to DNA. In particular, DNA methylation and posttranslational histone modifications play a critical role in "epigenetic" gene regulation. To understand how transcription by RNA polymerase II is regulated by histone modifications and chromatin structure in vivo, we are tracking histone and RNA polymerase II modifications in living cells and organisms by developing new fluorescent probes.
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