Abstract

Host The Postdoc Committee

Abstract Meiosis is a hallmark of sexual reproduction because it represents the transition from one life cycle to the next, and in animals meiosis produces gametes. Why meiosis evolved has been debated and most studies have focused on recombination of the parental alleles as the main function of meiosis. However, forty years ago, Robin Holliday proposed that an essential function of meiosis is to oppose the consequence of successive mitoses including accumulated modifications of chromatin in the form of DNA methylation and histone modifications referred collectively as epigenetic marks.  Recent findings supporting the hypothesis will be presented.

Biography The Berger lab travelled from France to Singapore and is currently at the Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna. Past work focused on plant reproduction and chromatin. Currently the Berger lab focuses works on evolution of chromatin using various multicellular and unicellular eukaryotes and prokaryotes.

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