Dr. Gregg is currently a tenured associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy and Human Genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and co-founder and CSO for Storyline Health Inc.

Dr. Gregg performed his PhD. studies at the University of Calgary in Canada in the field of neural stem cell biology. He was awarded the University of Calgary Chancellor’s Medal for his work on stem cell biology and regenerative therapies, and co-founded a biotechnology company called Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. In 2006, he moved to Harvard University and was awarded a Human Frontiers Fellowship. At Harvard, he performed postdoctoral studies with Dr. Catherine Dulac that focused on developing RNASeq methods that can distinguish the expression of maternal and paternal alleles in the brain. He was awarded the Eppendorf & Science Prize in Neurobiology in 2010 and his work was selected as one of the “Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year” by the National Institutes of Mental Health Research. In 2012, he was selected to be a New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator. In 2018, his lab’s work was selected by STAT News as one of the breakthroughs of the year. His lab’s research has been highlighted in international news, a TEDx talk and a documentary series developed by Illumina Inc. He co-founded Storyline Health Inc. (http://www.storylinehealth.com), which is leading a new field of Precision Behavioral Medicine to improve research, drug development and healthcare.

“My passions are ideas and discovery. I love working with and mentoring creative people!”

Susan graduated with a degree in animal sciences with focus on animal behavior at UC Davis. She has over two years of experience in lab animal care.

Susan helps to manage the lab, mouse colony and behavior facility. She is developing and optimizing new and established methods to screen mouse models for behavioral phenotypes.

Elliott carried out his graduate studies in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah. He has programming expertise in Python, R and Java. Elliott is developing new software and methods for bioinformatics and big data studies of gene expression and epigenetic mechanisms. He is a leader in the application of comparative genomic approaches in different species to uncover novel regulatory mechanisms for shaping clinically important phenotypes. (see Ferris et al. 2018 Cell Reports)

Noncanonical genomic imprinting in the brain

Dr. Paul Bonthuis brings extensive experience in molecular biology, mouse genetics and animal behavior to the lab.  He worked as a research technologist in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington for 4 years and then in the Bacterial Pathogens Research Group at the Seattle biomedical Research Institute.  Dr. Bonthuis then carried out his PhD. studies with Dr. Emilie Rissman at the University of Virginia.  His work focused on the roles of X-linked genes in regulating sexually dimorphic social behaviors.

In 2015, the Gregg lab identified novel noncanonical genomic imprinting effects in the brain that cause preferential silencing of either the maternally or paternally inherited allele for some genes. Paul is testing the hypothesis that noncanonical imprinting is a highly cell-type specific form of heritable epigenetic gene regulation through which mothers and fathers influence offspring brain function and behavior. His work involves novel CRISPR-Cas9 mediated genome engineering methods, imaging, deep behavioral screening, mouse genetics and bioinformatics. (See Bonthuis et al. Cell Reports 2015)

Discovery of Novel Epigenetic Allelic Effects in the Mouse, Primate and Human
Wei-Chao completed a Master’s degree In Taiwan focused on the study of stem cells.  He brings strong molecular and cell culture expertise to the lab.  As a graduate student in the Gregg lab, Wei-Chao, along with Elliott Ferris, described novel allele-specific epigenetic effects that shape gene expression in an age and cell dependent manner (See Huang and Ferris et al. Neuron 2017).

As a postdoc, Wei-Chao is working to understand how these allelic effects shape phenotypes and disease risks. He is involved in a spin off startup company to translate his work into the clinic.

Kathleen is passionate about all aspects of science and science communication…and dancing!  She joined the Gregg lab as a graduate student entering through the Molecular Biology program at the University of Utah. Katie is studying how allele-specific epigenetic effects shape gene expression programs at the cellular level during brain development. She is testing exciting new hypotheses for the function of allele-specific epigenetic effects in the developing brain that could change our understanding the factors shaping the risk for mental illnesses. Her project involves new CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering technologies, genomics methods and cell culture models. Katie worked as technician at Caltech before starting graduate studies at Utah. She is also a science fellow at the Utah Natural History Museum working to communicate science to the public.

Stephanie is an adventurous person who joined the Gregg lab and Quinlan lab in a joint effort to unearth the nature and importance of allele-specific epigenetic effects in humans. This is a very exciting project with potential applications for personalized medicine. Stephanie is a graduate student in the molecular biology program at the University of Utah and previously work in Dan Geschwind’s lab at UCLA. Her project involves statistical modeling of hundreds of human genomics datasets and software development. In addition, she is engaged in single cell genomics experiments, histology, imaging and other wet lab approaches.